st, even if he has more of
trial: at least he will gain habits of self-command, manliness, and
circumspection; he will learn to use his eyes, and will find materials
to use them upon; and thus will be gradually trained for the liberty
which, any how, he must have when he goes to college."

This was the more necessary, because, with many high excellences,
Charles was naturally timid and retiring, over-sensitive, and, though
lively and cheerful, yet not without a tinge of melancholy in his
character, which sometimes degenerated into mawkishness.

To Eton, then, he went; and there had the good fortune to fall into the
hands of an excellent tutor, who, while he instructed him in the old
Church-of-England principles of Mant and Doyley, gave his mind a
religious impression, which secured him against the allurements of bad
company, whether at the school itself, or afterwards at Oxford. To that
celebrated seat of learning he was in due time transferred, being
entered at St. Saviour's College; and he is in his sixth term from
matriculation, and his fourth of residence, at the time our story opens.

At Oxford, it is needless to say, he had found a great number of his
schoolfellows, but, it so happened, had found very few friends among
them. Some were too gay for him, and he had avoided them; others, with
whom he had been intimate at Eton, having high connections, had fairly
cut him on coming into residence, or, being entered at other colleges,
had lost sight of him. Almost everything depends at Oxford, in the
matter of acquaintance, on proximity of rooms. You choose your friend,
not so much by your tastes, as by your staircase. There is a story of a
London tradesman who lost custom after beautifying his premises, because
his entrance went up a step; and we all know how great is the difference
between open and shut doors when we walk along a street of shops. In a
university a youth's hours are portioned out to him. A regular man gets
up and goes to chapel, breakfasts, gets up his lectures, goes to
lecture, walks, dines; there is little to induce him to mount any
staircase but his own; and if he does so, ten to one he finds the friend
from home whom he is seeking; not to say that freshmen, who naturally
have common feelings and interests, as naturally are allotted a
staircase in common. And thus it was that Charles Reding was brought
across William Sheffield, who had come into residence the same term as
himself.

The minds of y