ad quitted. He knew very well what steps Lord
March or Tom Hervey would take, were either in his place; and though he
had no greater taste for an irregular life than became a man in his
station who was neither a Methodist nor Lord Dartmouth, he allowed his
thoughts to dwell, perhaps longer than was prudent, on the girl's
perfections, and on what might have been were his heart a little harder,
or the not over-rigid rule which he observed a trifle less stringent.
The father was dead. The girl was poor: probably her ideal of a gallant
was a College beau, in second-hand lace and stained linen, drunk on ale
in the forenoon. Was it likely that the fortress would hold out long, or
that the maiden's heart would prove to be more obdurate than Danaee's?

Soane, considering these things and his self-denial, grew irritable over
his Chambertin. He pictured Lord March's friend, the Rena, and found
this girl immeasurably before her. He painted the sensation she would
make and the fashion he could give her, and vowed that she was a Gunning
with sense and wit added; to sum up all, he blamed himself for a saint
and a Scipio. Then, late as it was, he sent for the landlord, and to get
rid of his thoughts, or in pursuance of them, inquired of that worthy if
Mr. Thomasson was in residence at Pembroke.

'Yes, Sir George, he is,' the landlord answered; and asked if he should
send for his reverence.

'No,' Soane commanded. 'If there is a chair to be had, I will go to
him.'

'There is one below, at your honour's service. And the men are waiting.'

So Sir George, with the landlord, lighting him and his man attending
with his cloak, descended the stairs in state, entered the sedan, and
was carried off to Pembroke.

CHAPTER III

TUTOR AND PUPILS--OLD STYLE

Doctor Samuel Johnson, of Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, had at this
time some name in the world; but not to the pitch that persons entering
Pembroke College hastened to pay reverence to the second floor over the
gateway, which he had vacated thirty years earlier--as persons do now.
Their gaze, as a rule, rose no higher than the first-floor oriel, where
the shapely white shoulder of a Parian statue, enhanced by a background
of dark-blue silken hanging, caught the wandering eye. What this lacked
of luxury and mystery was made up--almost to the Medmenham point in the
eyes of the city--by the gleam of girandoles, and the glow, rather felt
than seen, of Titian-copies in Florence frames.