nightly rings out the number of the students. Being for
the most part aged men, soured by misfortune and failure, they are
naturally enough often hard to please and difficult to deal with.

No passage in Thackeray's writings is more deeply pathetic than
that in which he records the last scene of one "poor brother," that
Bayard of fiction, Colonel Newcome: "At the usual evening hour the
chapel-bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed
feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet
smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and
quickly said, 'Adsum!' and fell back. It was the word he used at
school when names, were called; and lo, he whose heart was as that of
a little child had answered to his name and stood in the presence of
the Master."

AN OLD "GOWN-BOY."

[Footnote 2: The original seat of the Carthusian order was at
Chartreux in Dauphiny, where it was founded by Saint Bruno.]

[Footnote 3: Witham, which is not far from Fonthill, became in 1763
the property of Alderman Beckford, the millionaire father of the
celebrated author of _Vathek_.]

[Footnote 4: Lord Suffolk probably applied the purchase-money
(thirteen thousand pounds) to help build the palace, called Audley End
or Inn, he raised in Essex. It stands on abbey-land granted by Henry
VIII. to his wife's father, Lord Audley of Walden, near Saffron-Walden
in Essex, and was generally regarded as the most magnificent structure
of its period, although Evelyn gives the preference to Clarendon
House, that grand mansion of the chancellor's which provoked so much
jealousy against him, and came to be called Dunkirk House, from the
insinuation that it was built out of the funds paid by the French for
Dunkirk. Abbey-lands are supposed by many to carry ill-luck with them,
and quickly to change hands. Audley End has proved no exception to
this hypothetical fate. Only a portion of it now remains, but this,
though much marred by injudicious alterations, is amply sufficient to
show how grand it was. It has long since passed out of the hands of
the Howards, and now belongs to Lord Braybrooke, whose family name
is Nevill. A relation of his, a former peer of the name, edited the
best edition of _Pepys' Diary_, in which and in Evelyn is frequent
reference to Audley End.]

[Footnote 5: The order of proceedings was subsequently inverted.]

[Footnote 6: _The Newcomers_: "Founder's Day at Gray Friars." On one
of th