e top of their voices. On the third floor, Falloden paused and
herded them into the room of a shy second-year man, very glad to do such
a "blood" as Falloden a kindness, and help entertain his relations.

"Well, thank God, I've got you in!" said Falloden gloomily, as he shut
the door behind the last of them.

* * * * *

"How Duggy does hustle us! I've had nothing of a tea!" said Roger,
looking resentfully, his mouth full of cake, at his elder brother, who
was already beginning to take out his watch, to bid his mother and
sisters resume their discarded jackets, and to send a scout for a
four-wheeler.

But Falloden was inexorable. He tore his sister Nelly, a soft fluffy
creature of seventeen, away from the shy attentions of the second-year
man, scoffed in disgust at Trix's desire for chocolates after a
Gargantuan meal, and declared that they would all be late for the
Eights, if any more gorging was allowed. His mother rose obediently. To
be seen with such a son in the crowded Oxford streets filled her with
pride. She could have walked beside him for hours.

At the college gate, Trix pinched her brother's arm.

"Well, Duggy, say it!"

"Say what, you little scug?"

"'Thank God, I've got you out!'" laughed the child, laying her cheek
against his coat-sleeve. "That's what you're thinking. You know you are.
I say, Duggy, you do look jolly in those colours!"

"Don't talk rot!" grumbled Falloden, but he winked at her in brotherly
fashion, and Trix was more than happy. Like her mother, she believed
that Douglas was simply the handsomest and cleverest fellow in the
world. When he scolded it was better than other people's praise, and
when he gave you a real private wink, it raised a sister to the skies.
On such soil does male arrogance grow!

Soon they were in the stream of people crossing Christ Church river on
their way to the boats. The May sunshine lay broad on the buttercup
meadows, on the Christ Church elms, on the severe and blackened front of
Corpus, on the long gabled line of Merton. The river glittered in the
distance, and towards it the crowd of its worshippers--young girls in
white, young men in flannels, elderly fathers and mothers from a
distance, and young fathers and mothers from the rising tutorial homes
of Oxford--made their merry way. Falloden looked in all directions for
the Hooper party. A new anxiety and eagerness were stirring in him which
he resented, which he tried