under lip and looked at the fire. When Lady Thomson's
programme was ended, she made a pause before she said, slowly:

"Thank you so much, dear Aunt Beatrice. I should love to go, but--I
don't think--no, I don't think I'd better. You see, there's the
expense."

"Of course I don't expect you to pay for yourself. I take you."

"How very kind and sweet of you! But--well, do you know, you've
encouraged me so about that. First, I feel now as though I could sit
down and get it straight away. I will get it, Aunt Beatrice, if only to
make that old Professor look foolish."

Lady Thomson, though disappointed in a way, felt that Milly Flaxman was
doing credit to her principles, showing a spirit worthy of her family.
She did not urge the Roman plan; but content with a victory over "nerves
and the usual nonsense," withdrew triumphant to the railway station.

Tims came in when she was gone and heard about the Roman offer.

"You refused, when Aunt Beatrice was going to plank down the dollars?
M., you are a fool!"

"No, Tims," Mildred answered, deliberately; "you see, I don't feel sure
yet whether I can manage Aunt Beatrice."

CHAPTER V

Oxford is beautiful at all times, beautiful even now, in spite of the
cruel disfigurement inflicted upon her by the march of modern vulgarity,
but she has three high festivals which clothe her with a special glory
and crown her with their several crowns. One is the Festival of May,
when her hoary walls and ancient enclosures overflow with emerald and
white, rose-color and purple and gold, a foam of leafage and blossom,
breaking spray-like over edges of stone, gray as sea-worn rocks. And all
about the city the green meadows and groves burn with many tones of
color, brilliant as enamels or as precious stones, yet of a texture
softer and richer, more full of delicate shadows than any velvet mantle
that ever was woven for a queen.

Another Festival comes with that strayed bacchanal October, who hangs
her scarlet and wine-colored garlands on cloister and pinnacle, on wall
and tower. And gradually the foliage of grove and garden, turns through
shade of bluish metallic green, to the mingled splendor of pale gold and
beaten bronze and deepest copper, half glowing and half drowned in the
low, mellow sunlight, and purple mist of autumn.

Last comes the Festival of Mid-winter, the Festival of the Frost. The
rime comes, or the snow, and the long lines of the buildings, the
fret-work of stone, t