ok up the subject of my private tastes and habits. Was I
fond of riding? Yes. Driving? Pretty well. Reading? Very. Then she
considerately hoped that I did not read much by candle-light--above all
by an oil-lamp--it was very injurious. I assured her that I would be
cautious for the future. Then she offered me a receipt for eye-water, in
case I suffered from weakness arising from over-exertion of those
organs--declined, with thanks. Hoped I did not read above twelve hours
a-day: some young men, she had heard, read sixteen, which she considered
as really inconsistent with a due regard to health. I assured her that
our sentiments on that point perfectly coincided, and that I had no
tendency to excesses of that kind. At last she began to institute
inquiries about certain under-graduates with whose families she was
acquainted; and the two or three names which I recognised being hunting
men, I referred her to Hurst as quite _au fait_ in the sporting circles
of Oxford, and succeeded in hooking them into a conversation which
effectually relieved me.

Leicester, as I could overhear, had been still rather rebellious against
going home before the play was over, and was insisting that his being in
college by nine was not really material; nor did he appear over-pleased,
when, in answer to an appeal from Flora, I said plainly, that the
consequences of his "knocking in" late, when under sentence of strict
confinement to the regular hour, might not be pleasant--a fact, however,
which he himself, though with a very bad grace, was compelled to admit.

At last the time arrived for our party to separate: Horace and I to
return to Oxford, and the others to adjourn to see _Richard the Third_
performed at the B---- theatre, under the distinguished patronage of the
members of the H---- Hunt. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and as
Hurst accompanied us to the stable-yard to "start us," as he
complacently phrased it, it was clear that he was suffering, like a
great many unfortunate individuals in public and private life, under an
overweening sense of his own importance. "You'll have an uncommon
pleasant drive of it; upon my word you will," he remarked; "it wouldn't
do for me to say I would not stay, you know, as Miss Leicester--Mrs
Leicester, that is--seemed to make such a point of it; but really"----

"Oh, come, Hurst," said I, "don't pretend to say you've made any
sacrifice in the matter, I know you are quite delighted; I'm sure I
should h