ng. It would be a great point if he could get to his
journey's end so early in the week, that by Sunday, if he was thought
worthy, he might offer up his praises for the mercies vouchsafed to him
in the great and holy communion of the Universal Church. Accordingly he
determined to make an attempt on Carlton that evening; and hoped, if he
went to his room between seven and eight, to find him returned from
Common-Room. With this intention he sallied out at about the half-hour,
gained Carlton's College, knocked at the gate, entered, passed on, up
the worn wooden steep staircase. The oak was closed; he descended, found
a servant; "Mr. Carlton was giving a dinner in Common-Room; it would
soon be over." Charles determined to wait for him.

The servant lighted candles in the inner room, and Charles sat down at
the fire. For awhile he sat in reflection; then he looked about for
something to occupy him. His eye caught an Oxford paper; it was but a
few days old. "Let us see how the old place goes on," he said to
himself, as he took it up. He glanced from one article to another,
looking who were the University-preachers of the week, who had taken
degrees, who were public examiners, etc., etc., when his eye was
arrested by the following paragraph:--

"DEFECTION FROM THE CHURCH.--We understand that another victim has
lately been added to the list of those whom the venom of Tractarian
principles has precipitated into the bosom of the Sorceress of Rome. Mr.
Reding, of St. Saviour's, the son of a respectable clergyman of the
Establishment, deceased, after eating the bread of the Church all his
life, has at length avowed himself the subject and slave of an Italian
Bishop. Disappointment in the schools is said to have been the
determining cause of this infatuated act. It is reported that legal
measures are in progress for directing the penalties of the Statute of
Praemunire against all the seceders; and a proposition is on foot for
petitioning her Majesty to assign the sum thereby realized by the
Government to the erection of a 'Martyrs' Memorial' in the sister
University."

"So," thought Charles, "the world, as usual, is beforehand with me;" and
he sat speculating about the origin of the report till he almost forgot
that he was waiting for Carlton.

CHAPTER IV.

While Charles was learning in Carlton's rooms the interest which the
world took in his position and acts, he was actually furnishing a topic
of conversation to that