tie say to being made a treasure of?
She has to think a good deal for herself; and I am afraid
you are not quite certain of being our sole knight and
guardian because Uncle Robert wants to get rid of us. Poor
old uncle!"

"But you wouldn't object, then?"

"Oh, dear, no--at least, not unless you take to looking as
cross as you did just now in our lodgings. Of course, I'm
all for dragons who are mad about dancing, and never think
of leaving a ball-room till the band packs up and the old
man shuffles in to put out the lights."

"Then I shall be a model dragon," said Tom. Twenty-four
hours earlier he had declared that nothing should induce him
to go to the balls; but his views on the subject had been
greatly modified, and he had been worrying all his
acquaintance, not unsuccessfully, for the necessary tickets,
ever since his talk with his cousins on the preceding
evening.

The scene became more and more gay and lively as they passed
out of Christchurch towards the Long Walk. The town turned
out to take its share in the show; and citizens of all
ranks, the poorer ones accompanied by children of all ages,
trooped along cheek by jowl with members of the University,
of all degrees, and their visitors, somewhat indeed to the
disgust of certain of these latter, many of whom declared
that the whole thing was spoilt by the miscellaneousness of
the crowd, and that "those sort of people" ought not to be
allowed to come to the Long Walk on Show Sunday. However,
"those sort of people" abounded nevertheless, and seemed to
enjoy very much, in sober fashion, the solemn march up and
down beneath the grand avenue of elms in the midst of their
betters.

The University was there in strength, from the
Vice-Chancellor downwards. Somehow or another, though it
might seem an unreasonable thing at first sight for grave
and reverend persons to do, yet most of the gravest of them
found some reason for taking a turn in the Long Walk. As for
the undergraduates, they turned out almost to a man, and
none of them more certainly than the young gentlemen,
elaborately dressed, who had sneered at the whole ceremony
as snobbish an hour or two before.

As for our hero, he sailed into the meadows thoroughly
satisfied for the moment with himself and his convoy. He had
every reason to be so, for though there were many gayer and
more fashionably dressed ladies present than his cousin, and
cousin by courtesy, there were none there whose faces,
figures