ensured his own
behavior when he was seventeen and looked back with some dismay on the
view of himself at that time as it appeared to him now. He was as much
shocked by that period now as at school in his fifteenth year he had
been shocked by the memory of the two horrid little girls at Eastbourne.
Altogether this invitation seemed an admirable occasion to open the door
once again to Mrs. Ross and to let her personality enter his mind as the
sane adjudicator of whatever problems should soon present themselves. It
would be jolly for Alan, too, if his aunt came up and saw him playing
for the Varsity in whatever cricket match was provided to relieve the
tedium of too much rowing.

So finally, after one or two more protests from Stella, it was arranged
that she should come up for Eights Week under the guardianship of Mrs.
Ross.

Michael took care some time beforehand to incorporate a body of
assistant entertainers. Lonsdale in consideration of Michael having
helped him with his people for one day last year was engaged for the
whole visit. Maurice was made to vow attendance for at least every other
occasion. Wedderburn volunteered his services. Guy Hazlewood, who was
threatened with Schools, was let off with a lunch. Nigel Stewart spoke
mysteriously of a girl whose advent he expected on which account he
could not pledge himself too straightly. Rooms were taken in the High.
Trains were looked out. On Saturday morning Lonsdale and Michael went
down to the station to meet Mrs. Ross and Stella.

"I think it was a very bad move bringing me," said Lonsdale, as they
waited on the platform. "Your sister will probably think me an awful
ass, and ..."

But the train interrupted Lonsdale's self-depreciation, and he sustained
himself well through the crisis of the introductions. Michael thought
Mrs. Ross had never so well been suited by her background as now when
tall and straight and in close-fitting gray dress she stood in the
Oxford sunlight. Stella, too, in that flowered muslin relieved Michael
instantly of the faint anxiety he had conceived lest she might appear in
a Munich garb unbecoming to a reserved landscape. It was a very
peculiarly feminine dress, but somehow she had never looked more like a
boy, and her gray eyes, as for one moment she let them rest wide open on
the city's towers and spires, were more than usually gray and pellucid.

"I say, I ordered a car to meet us," said Lonsdale. "I thought we should
buzz along qu