the year? June, how can you go
on sitting there, when you know you ought to be in your berth?"

"I wish he was," said Flora, "but let him have some tea first."

"And tell us more, Harry," said Ethel. "Oh! it is famous! I knew he
would come light at last. It is too delightful, if papa was but here!"

"Isn't it? You should have seen how Anderson grinned--he is only
fourth--down below Forder, and Cheviot, and Ashe."

"Well, I did not think Norman would have been before Forder and Cheviot.
That is grand."

"It was the verses that did it," said Harry; "they had an hour to do
Themistocles on the hearth of Admetus, and there he beat them all to
shivers. 'Twas all done smack, smooth, without a scratch, in Alcaics,
and Cheviot heard Wilmot saving, 'twas no mere task, but had poetry, and
all that sort of thing in it. But I don't know whether that would have
done, if he had not come out so strong in the recitation; they put him
on in Priam's speech to Achilles, and he said it--Oh it was too bad papa
did not hear him! Every one held their breath and listened."

"How you do go on!" muttered Norman; but no one heeded, and Harry
continued. "He construed a chorus in Sophocles without a blunder, but
what did the business was this, I believe. They asked all manner of
out-of-the-way questions--history and geography, what no one expected,
and the fellows who read nothing they can help, were thoroughly posed.
Forder had not a word to say, and the others were worse, for Cheviot
thought Queen Elizabeth's Earl of Leicester was Simon de Montfort; and
didn't know when that battle was, beginning with an E.--was it Evesham,
or Edgehill?"

"O Harry, you are as bad yourself?"

"But any one would know Leicester, because of Kenilworth," said Harry;
"and I'm not sixth form. If papa had but been there! Every one was
asking for him, and wishing it. For Dr. Hoxton called me--they shook
hands with me, and wished me joy of it, and told me to tell my father
how well Norman had done."

"I suppose you looked so happy, they could not help it," said Flora,
smiling at that honest beaming face of joy.

"Ay," said Norman, looking up; "they had something to say to him on his
own score, which he has forgotten."

"I should think not," said Harry. "Why, what d'ye think they said? That
I had gone on as well as all the Mays, and they trusted I should still,
and be a credit to my profession."

"Oh! Harry! why didn't you tell us?"

"Oh! that is grand!" and,