last two years of my
school, it would be such a nice thought for them. And would you believe
it, they were quite angry and refused! So mother thought they ought to
know how mean it was of them. She is so plucky! So she told them that
they had no sympathy with anybody but themselves, and didn't care about
any Scott except their own Ted, who was dead and couldn't come to life
again, however much they hoarded. Mother does say things so straight.
She is so sporting! But wasn't it horrid for her to have to do it?"

May had gradually moved to the door ready to go out. Now she opened it.

So this was the young woman to whom the Warden had bound himself, and
this was his future mother-in-law!

May left the breakfast-room abruptly and without a word.

She mounted the stairs swiftly. She wanted to be alone. As the servants
were still moving about upstairs, she went into the drawing-room.

There was no one there but that living portrait of Stephen Langley, and
he was looking at her across the wide space between them with an almost
imperceptible sneer--so she thought.

CHAPTER XV

MRS. POTTEN'S CARELESSNESS

There is little left in Christ Church of the simplicity and piety of the
Age of Faith. It was rebuilt when the fine spiritual romanticism of our
architectural adolescence had coarsened into a prosperous and prosaic
middle age.

The western facade of the College is fine, but it is ostentatious for
its purpose, and when one passes under Tom Tower and enters the
quadrangle there is something dreary in the terraces that were intended
to be cloistered and the mean windows of the ground floor that were
intended to be hidden.

"It is like Harding," said Bingham to himself, as he strolled in with a
parcel under his arm. "He is always mistaking Mrs. Grundy for the Holy
Ghost. But Harding has his uses," he went on thinking, "and so has Tom
Quod--it makes one thankful that Wolsey died before he had time to
finish ruining the cathedral."

An elderly canon of Christ Church, with a fine profile and dignified
manner, stopped Bingham and demanded to know what he was carrying under
his arm.

"Nothing for the wounded," said Bingham. "I've bought a green
table-cloth and a pair of bedroom slippers for myself. I've just come
from a Sale in which some Oxford ladies are interested. One of the many
good works with which we are going strong nowadays."

The Canon turned and walked with Bingham. "Do you know Boreham?" he
asked r