as also a mother to whatever two young
gentlemen were lodging under her roof. Childless but for Katie and
Clarence, she had for her successive pairs of tenants a truly vast fund
of maternal feeling to draw on. Nor were the drafts made in secret. To
every gentleman, from the outset, she proclaimed the relation in which
she would stand to him. Moreover, always she needed a strong filial
sense in return: this was only fair.

Because the Duke was an orphan, even more than because he was a Duke,
her heart had with a special rush gone out to him when he and Mr. Noaks
became her tenants. But, perhaps because he had never known a mother,
he was evidently quite incapable of conceiving either Mrs. Batch as his
mother or himself as her son. Indeed, there was that in his manner,
in his look, which made her falter, for once, in exposition of her
theory--made her postpone the matter to some more favourable time. That
time never came, somehow. Still, her solicitude for him, her pride in
him, her sense that he was a great credit to her, rather waxed than
waned. He was more to her (such are the vagaries of the maternal
instinct) than Katie or Mr. Noaks: he was as much as Clarence.

It was, therefore, a deeply agitated woman who now came heaving up into
the Duke's presence. His Grace was "giving notice"? She was sure she
begged his pardon for coming up so sudden. But the news was that
sudden. Hadn't her girl made a mistake, maybe? Girls were so vague-like
nowadays. She was sure it was most kind of him to give those handsome
ear-rings. But the thought of him going off so unexpected--middle of
term, too--with never a why or a but! Well!

In some such welter of homely phrase (how foreign to these classic
pages!) did Mrs. Batch utter her pain. The Duke answered her tersely but
kindly. He apologised for going so abruptly, and said he would be very
happy to write for her future use a testimonial to the excellence of
her rooms and of her cooking; and with it he would give her a cheque not
only for the full term's rent, and for his board since the beginning of
term, but also for such board as he would have been likely to have in
the term's remainder. He asked her to present her accounts forthwith.

He occupied the few minutes of her absence by writing the testimonial.
It had shaped itself in his mind as a short ode in Doric Greek. But, for
the benefit of Mrs. Batch, he chose to do a rough equivalent in English.

TO AN UNDERGRADUATE NE