lue velvet, with a neck like an ostrich."

"Thank you," said Leicester, "that's my aunt."

"Well, on that ground, we'll drink her health," said Fane, whose
coolness was proverbial. "There was Hurst, however, sitting between her
and an uncommonly pretty girl, with dark hair and eyes, dressed in--let
me see"--

"Never mind; it was one of my cousins, I suppose," interposed Horace,
who was engaged in lighting a cigar at the candle, apparently with more
zeal than success.

"Well, we'll drink _her_ health for her own sake, if you have no
particular objection. I've no doubt the rest of the company will take my
word for her being the prettiest girl on the ground to-day; Hurst would
second me if he were here, for I never saw a man making love more
decidedly in my life."

"Stuff!" said Horace, pitching his cigar into the fire; "pass that
punch."

"What jealous, Leicester?" said two or three of the party--"preserved
ground, eh?"

"Not at all, not at all," said Horace, trying with a very bad grace to
laugh off his evident annoyance; "at all events, I don't consider Hurst
a very formidable poacher; but what I want to know is, how he didn't
come home with Miller and your party?"

"Miller said he was coming up directly, so you can ask him; I really
heard nothing of it. Hark, there are steps coming up the staircase now."

It proved to be Miller himself, followed by the under-porter, a
good-tempered fellow, who was the factotum of the under-graduates at
late hours, when the ordinary staff of servants had left college for the
night.

"How are you, Leicester?" said he, as he walked straight to the little
pantry, or "scouts' room," immediately opposite the door, which forms
part of the usual suite of college apartments; "come here, Bob."

"Where's Hurst?" was Horace's impatient query.

"Wait a bit," replied Miller from inside, where he was rattling the
plates in the course of investigating the remains of the supper--he was
not the man to go to bed supperless after a twelve miles' drive. "Here,
Bob," he continued, as he emerged at last with a cold fowl--"take this
fellow down with you, and grill him in no time; here's a lump of
butter--and Harvey's sauce--and--where do you keep the pickled
mushrooms, Leicester? here they are--make a little gravy; and here,
Bob--it's a cold night--here's a glass of wine; now you'll drink Mr
Leicester's health, and vanish."

Bob drank the toast audibly, floored his tumbler of port at two gulp