njoy being disturbed during this hour.
But what do you say to a turn in the open air? One can talk so much
better walking than sitting down on opposite sides of a fireplace with
no fire in it."

Julian readily assented, and Mr Carden took his arm as they bent their
way down to the cricket-field. There they stopped involuntarily for a
time, to gaze at the house match which was going on, and the master
entered with the utmost vivacity into the keen yet harmless "chaff"
which was being interchanged between the partisans of the rival houses.

"What a charming place this field is," he said, "on a summer evening,
while the sunset lets fall upon it the last innocuous arrows of its
golden sheaf. When I am wearied to death with work or vexation--which,
alas! is too often--I always run down here, and it gives me a fresh
lease of life."

Julian smiled at his tutor's metaphorical style of speech, which he knew
was in him the natural expressions of a glowing and poetic heart, that
saw no reason to be ashamed of its own warm feelings and changeful
fancies; and Mr Carden, wrapped in the scene before him, and the
sensations it excited, murmured to himself some of his favourite lines--

"Alas that one
Should use the days of summer but to live,
And breathe but as the needful element
The strange superfluous glory of the air
Nor rather stand in awe apart, beside
The untouched time, and murmuring o'er and o'er
In awe and wonder, `These are summer days!'"

"Shall we stroll across the fields, sir, before lock-up?" said Julian,
as a triumphant shout proclaimed that the game was over, and the
Parkites had defeated the Grovians.

"Yes, do. By the bye, what was it that you had to ask me about?"

"Oh, sir, I don't think I've told you before; but I'm going up to Saint
Werner's as a sub-sizar."

Mr Carden looked surprised. "Indeed! Is that necessary?"

"Yes, sir; it's a choice between that and not going at all. And what I
wanted to ask you was, whether it will subject me to much annoyance or
contempt; because, if so--"

"_Contempt_, my dear fellow!" said Mr Carden quickly. "Yes," he added,
after a pause, "the contempt of the contemptible--certainly of no one
else."

"But do you think that any Harton fellows will cut me?"

"Unquestionably not; at least, if any of them do, it will be such a
proof of their own absolute worthlessness, that you will be well rid of
such acquaintances."

Julian seemed but little rea