an ruffled made
up for some awkwardness and want of _savoir faire_. He soon became a not
unpopular member of the best set of his year, and though neither capable
of becoming, nor aspiring to become, a leader, was admitted by the
leaders as among their nearer hangers-on.

Of ambition he had at that time not one particle; greatness, or indeed
superiority of any kind, seemed so far off and incomprehensible to him
that the idea of connecting it with himself never crossed his mind. If
he could escape the notice of all those with whom he did not feel himself
_en rapport_, he conceived that he had triumphed sufficiently. He did
not care about taking a good degree, except that it must be good enough
to keep his father and mother quiet. He did not dream of being able to
get a fellowship; if he had, he would have tried hard to do so, for he
became so fond of Cambridge that he could not bear the thought of having
to leave it; the briefness indeed of the season during which his present
happiness was to last was almost the only thing that now seriously
troubled him.

Having less to attend to in the matter of growing, and having got his
head more free, he took to reading fairly well--not because he liked it,
but because he was told he ought to do so, and his natural instinct, like
that of all very young men who are good for anything, was to do as those
in authority told him. The intention at Battersby was (for Dr Skinner
had said that Ernest could never get a fellowship) that he should take a
sufficiently good degree to be able to get a tutorship or mastership in
some school preparatory to taking orders. When he was twenty-one years
old his money was to come into his own hands, and the best thing he could
do with it would be to buy the next presentation to a living, the rector
of which was now old, and live on his mastership or tutorship till the
living fell in. He could buy a very good living for the sum which his
grandfather's legacy now amounted to, for Theobald had never had any
serious intention of making deductions for his son's maintenance and
education, and the money had accumulated till it was now about five
thousand pounds; he had only talked about making deductions in order to
stimulate the boy to exertion as far as possible, by making him think
that this was his only chance of escaping starvation--or perhaps from
pure love of teasing.

When Ernest had a living of 600 or 700 pounds a year with a house, and
not to