nmindful of his promise to look after my
brother, and had secured him an excellent first-floor sitting-room, with
a bedroom adjoining, having an aspect towards New College Lane.

I shall pass over the first two years of my brother's residence at
Oxford, because they have nothing to do with the present story. They
were spent, no doubt, in the ordinary routine of work and recreation
common in Oxford at that period.

From his earliest boyhood he had been passionately devoted to music,
and had attained a considerable proficiency on the violin. In the autumn
term of 1841 he made the acquaintance of Mr. William Gaskell, a very
talented student at New College, and also a more than tolerable
musician. The practice of music was then very much less common at Oxford
than it has since become, and there were none of those societies
existing which now do so much to promote its study among undergraduates.
It was therefore a cause of much gratification to the two young men, and
it afterwards became a strong bond of friendship, to discover that one
was as devoted to the pianoforte as was the other to the violin. Mr.
Gaskell, though in easy circumstances, had not a pianoforte in his
rooms, and was pleased to use a fine instrument by D'Almaine that John
had that term received as a birthday present from his guardian.

From that time the two students were thrown much together, and in the
autumn term of 1841 and Easter term of 1842 practised a variety of music
in John's rooms, he taking the violin part and Mr. Gaskell that for the
pianoforte.

It was, I think, in March 1842 that John purchased for his rooms a piece
of furniture which was destined afterwards to play no unimportant part
in the story I am narrating. This was a very large and low wicker chair
of a form then coming into fashion in Oxford, and since, I am told,
become a familiar object of most college rooms. It was cushioned with a
gaudy pattern of chintz, and bought for new of an upholsterer at the
bottom of the High Street.

Mr. Gaskell was taken by his uncle to spend Easter in Rome, and
obtaining special leave from his college to prolong his travels; did not
return to Oxford till three weeks of the summer term were passed and May
was well advanced. So impatient was he to see his friend that he would
not let even the first evening of his return pass without coming round
to John's rooms. The two young men sat without lights until the night
was late; and Mr. Gaskell had much