ast, staying three or four days at the Palazzo
Barberini. Constance, however, could not be induced to trouble her head
about him. "He bored Mamma and me dreadfully," she said--"he had seven
pokers up his back, and was never human for a minute. I don't want to
see him at all." Oxford, however, seemed to be of the opinion that
ex-viceroys do want to see their cousins; for the Hooper party found
themselves asked as a matter of course to the All Souls' luncheon, the
Vice-Chancellor's garden-party, and to a private dinner-party in Christ
Church on the day of the Encaenia, at which all the new-made doctors were
to be present. As for the ball-tickets for Commem. week, they poured in;
and meanwhile there were endless dinner-parties, and every afternoon had
its river picnic, now on the upper, now on the lower river.

It was clear, indeed, both to her relations and to Oxford in general,
that Constance Bledlow was to be the heroine of the moment. She would be
the "star" of Commem., as so many other pretty or charming girls had
been before her. But in her case, it was no mere undergraduate success.
Old and young alike agreed to praise her. Her rank inevitably gave her
precedence at almost every dinner-party, Oxford society not being rich
in the peerage. The host, who was often the head of a college and
grey-haired, took her in; and some other University big-wig, equally
mature, flanked her on the right. When she was undressing in her little
room after these entertainments, she would give Annette a yawning or
plaintive account of them. "You know, Annette, I never talk to anybody
under fifty now!" But at the time she never failed to play her part. She
was born with the wish to please, which, as every one knows, makes three
parts of the art of pleasing.

Meanwhile Sorell, who was at all times a very popular man, in great
request, accepted many more invitations than usual in order to see as
much as he could of this triumphal progress of Lady Risborough's
daughter. Oxford society was then much more limited than now, and he and
she met often. It seemed to him whenever he came across Douglas Falloden
in Connie's company during these days, that the young man's pursuit of
Constance, if it was a pursuit, was making no progress at all, and that
his temper suffered accordingly. Connie's endless engagements were
constantly in the way. Sorell thought he detected once or twice that
Falloden had taken steps to procure invitations to houses where