for Edward, and stopped at the gate of Albion
Villa. At this sight mother and daughter both
turned their heads quickly away by one
independent impulse, and set a bad example.
Apparently neither of them had calculated on this
paltry little detail. They were game for theoretical
departures; to impalpable universities; and "an
air-drawn Bus, a Bus of the mind," would not
have dejected for a moment their lofty Spartan
souls on glory bent; safe glory. But here was
a Bus of wood, and Edward going bodily away
inside it.

The victim kissed them, threw up his
portmanteau and bag, and departed serene as Italian
skies. The victors watched the pitiless Bus quite
out of sight; then went up to his bedroom, all
disordered by packing, and, on the very face of it,
vacant; and sat down on his little bed
intertwining and weeping.

Edward was received at Exeter College, as
young gentlemen are received at college; and
nowhere else, I hope, for the credit of Christendom.
They showed him a hole in the roof, and
called it an "Attic;" grim pleasantry! being a
puncture in the modern Athens. They inserted
him; told-him what hour at the top of the
morning he must be in chapel; and left him to
find out his other ills. His cases were welcomed
like Christians, by the whole staircase. These
undergraduates abused one another's crockery as
their own: the joint stock of breakables had
just dwindled very low, and Mrs. Dodd's bountiful
contribution was a godsend.

The new comer soon found that his views of a
learned university had been narrow. Out of
place in it? why, he could not have taken his
wares to a better market; the modern Athens,
like the ancient, cultivates muscle as well as
mind. The captain of the university eleven saw
a cricket-ball thrown all across the ground; he
instantly sent a professional bowler to find out
who that was; through the same ambassador the
thrower was invited to play on club days; and
proving himself an infallible catch and long stop,
a mighty thrower, a swift runner, and a steady,
though not very brilliant, bat, he was, after one
or two repulses, actually adopted into the
university eleven. He communicated this ray of glory
by letter to his mother and sister with genuine
delight, coldly and clumsily expressed; they
replied with feigned and fluent rapture. Advancing
steadily in that line of academic study,
towards which his genius lay, he won a hurdle
race, and sent home a little silver hurdle; and
soon after brought a pewter pot, with a Latin
inscription, recording the victory at "Fives" of
Edward Dodd; but not too arrogantly; for in
the centre of the pot was this device, "The Lord
is my illumination."

The Curate of Sandford, who pulled number
six in the Exeter boat, left Sandford for Witney:
on this he felt he could no longer do his college
justice by water, and his parish by land, nor
escape the charge of pluralism, preaching at
Witney, and rowing at Oxford. He fluctuated,
sighed, kept his Witney, and laid down his oar.
Then Edward was solemnly weighed in his Jersey
and flannel trousers by the crew, and proving
only eleven stone eight, whereas he had been
ungenerously suspected of twelve stone, was
elected to the vacant oar by acclamation. He
was a picture in a boat; and oh!!! well pulled,
six!! was a hearty ejaculation constantly hurled
at him from the bank by many men of other
colleges, and even by the more genial among the
cads, as the Exeter glided at ease down the river,
or shot up it in a race.

He was now as much talked of in the
University as any man of his College, except one.
Singularly enough that one was his townsman;
but no friend of his: he was much Edward's
senior in standing, though not in age; and this
is a barrier the junior must not step over—without
direct encouragement—at Oxford. Moreover,
the college was a large one, and some of
"the sets" very exclusive: young Hardie was
Doge of a studious clique; and careful to make
it understood that he was a reading man who
boated and cricketed, to avoid the fatigue of
lounging; not a boatman or cricketer who strayed
into Aristotle in the intervals of Perspiration.

His public running since he left Harrow was
as follows; the prize poem in his fourth term;
the sculls in his sixth; the Ireland scholarship
in his eighth (he pulled second for it the year
before); Stroke of the Exeter in his tenth; and
reckoned sure of a first class, to consummate his
twofold career.

To this young Apollo, crowned with variegated
laurel, Edward looked up from a distance. The
brilliant creature never bestowed a word on him
by land; and by water only such observations as
the following; "Time, Six!" "Well pulled,
Six!" "Very well pulled, Six!" Except, by-the-by,
one race; when he swore at him like a trooper
for not being quicker at starting. The excitement
of nearly being bumped by Brasenose
in the first hundred yards was an excuse;
however, Hardie apologised as they were dressing in
the barge after the race: but the apology was so
stiff, it did not pave the way to an acquaintance.

Young Hardie, rising twenty-one, thought
nothing human worthy of reverence, but Intellect.
Invited to dinner, on the same day, with the
Emperor of Russia, and with Voltaire, and with
meek St. John, he would certainly have told the
coachman to put him down at Voltaire.

His quick eye detected Edward's character;
but was not attracted by it: says he to one of
his adherents "what a good-natured spoon
that Dodd is! Phoebus, what a name!" Edward,
on the other hand, praised this brilliant in all
his letters, and recorded his triumphs and such
of his witty sayings as leaked through his own
set, to reinvigorate mankind. This roused Julia's
ire. It smouldered through three letters: but
burst out when there was no letter, but Mrs.
Dodd, meaning, Heaven knows, no harm,
happened to say meekly, à propos of Edward,
"You know, love, we cannot all be young