t for everything. Mrs. Pasmer would have been willing to take
him from others, but if he were so anomalous as to have no one to be
taken from, of course it lessened his value as a trophy. These things
went in and out of her mind, with a final resolution to get a full
explanation from Mrs. Saintsbury, while she stood and smiled her winning
assent up into the young man's handsome face.

Mrs. Saintsbury, caught sight of them, and as if suddenly reminded of a
forgotten duty, rushed vividly upon him.

"Mr. Mavering, I shall not let you stay with us another minute. You must
go to your room now and get ready. You ought to have a little rest."

He broke out in his laugh. "Do you think I want to go and lie down
awhile, like a lady before a party?"

"I'm sure you'd be the stronger for it," said Mrs. Saintsbury. "But go,
upon any theory. Don't you see there isn't a Senior left?"

He would not look round. "They've gone to other spreads," he said. "But
now I'll tell you: it is pretty, near time, and if you'll take me to my
room, I'll go."

"You're a spoiled boy," said Mrs. Saintsbury.

"But I want Mrs. Pasmer to see the room of a real student--a reading
man, and all that--and we'll come, to humour you."

"Well, come upon any theory," said young Mavering.

His father, and Professor Saintsbury, who had been instructed by his
wife not to lose sight of her, were at hand, and they crossed to that
old hall which keeps its favour with the students in spite of the
rivalry of the newer dormitories--it would be hard to say why.

Mrs. Pasmer willingly assented to its being much better, out of pure
complaisance, though the ceilings were low and the windows small, and it
did not seem to her that the Franklin stove and the aesthetic papering
and painting of young Mavering's room brought it up to the level of
those others that she had seen. But with her habit of saying some
friendly lying thing, no matter what her impressions were, she
exclaimed; "Oh, how cosy!" and glad of the word, she went about from one
to another, asking, "Isn't this cosy?"

Mrs. Saintsbury said: "It's supposed to be the cell of a recluse; but it
is cosy--yes."

"It looks as if some hermit had been using it as a store-room," said her
husband; for there were odds and ends of furniture and clothes and boxes
and handbags scattered about the floor.

"I forgot all about them when I asked you," cried Mavering, laughing
out his delight. "They belong to some fellows th