he torture. But, if husbands, oh, go not
yourselves, and send not your sons to wait for the testamur of
the head of your house; for Oxford has seldom seen a sight over
which she would more willingly draw the veil, with averted face,
than that of the youth rushing wildly, dissolved in tears from
the schools' quadrangle, and shouting, "Mamma! papa's plucked!
papa's plucked!"

The examination is nearly over which is to decide the academical
fate of some of our characters; the paper-work of the candidates
for honors has been going on for the last week. Every morning our
three St. Ambrose acquaintances have mustered with the rest for
the anxious day's work, after such breakfasts as they have been
able to eat under the circumstances. They take their work in very
different ways. Grey rushes nervously back to his rooms whenever
he is out of the schools for ten minutes, to look up dates and
dodges. He worries himself sadly over every blunder which he
discovers himself to have made, and sits up nearly all night
cramming, always hoping for a better to-morrow. Blake keeps up
his affected carelessness to the last, quizzing the examiners,
laughing over the shots he has been making in the last paper. His
shots, it must be said, turn out well for the most part; in the
taste paper particularly, as they compare notes, he seems to have
almost struck the bull's-eye in his answers to one or two
questions which Hardy and Grey have passed over altogether. When
he is wide of the mark, he passes it off with some jesting
remark; "that a fool can ask in five minutes more questions than
a wise man can answer in a week," or wish "that the examiners
would play fair, and change sides of the table for an hour with
the candidates for a finish." But he, too, though he does it on
the sly, is cramming with his coach at every available spare
moment. Hardy had finished his reading a full thirty-six hours
before the first day of paper-work, and had braced himself for
the actual struggle by two good nights' rest and a long day on
the river with Tom. He had worked hard from the first, and so had
really mastered his books. And now, feeling that he had fairly
and honestly done his best, and that if he fails it will be
either from bad luck or natural incapacity, and not from his own
fault, he manages to keep a cooler head than any of his
companions in trouble.

The week's paper-work passed off uneventfully; then comes the
_viva voce_ work for the candidates