e till later years
that the number of visitors would not thereby have sensibly increased.

On the blessed Monday that the Pembrokes left, he walked out here with
three friends. It was a day when the sky seemed enormous. One cloud,
as large as a continent, was voyaging near the sun, whilst other clouds
seemed anchored to the horizon, too lazy or too happy to move. The sky
itself was of the palest blue, paling to white where it approached the
earth; and the earth, brown, wet, and odorous, was engaged beneath it on
its yearly duty of decay. Rickie was open to the complexities of autumn;
he felt extremely tiny--extremely tiny and extremely important; and
perhaps the combination is as fair as any that exists. He hoped that all
his life he would never be peevish or unkind.

"Elliot is in a dangerous state," said Ansell. They had reached the
dell, and had stood for some time in silence, each leaning against a
tree. It was too wet to sit down.

"How's that?" asked Rickie, who had not known he was in any state at
all. He shut up Keats, whom he thought he had been reading, and slipped
him back into his coat-pocket. Scarcely ever was he without a book.

"He's trying to like people."

"Then he's done for," said Widdrington. "He's dead."

"He's trying to like Hornblower."

The others gave shrill agonized cries.

"He wants to bind the college together. He wants to link us to the beefy
set."

"I do like Hornblower," he protested. "I don't try."

"And Hornblower tries to like you."

"That part doesn't matter."

"But he does try to like you. He tries not to despise you. It is
altogether a most public-spirited affair."

"Tilliard started them," said Widdrington. "Tilliard thinks it such a
pity the college should be split into sets."

"Oh, Tilliard!" said Ansell, with much irritation. "But what can you
expect from a person who's eternally beautiful? The other night we had
been discussing a long time, and suddenly the light was turned on. Every
one else looked a sight, as they ought. But there was Tilliard, sitting
neatly on a little chair, like an undersized god, with not a curl
crooked. I should say he will get into the Foreign Office."

"Why are most of us so ugly?" laughed Rickie.

"It's merely a sign of our salvation--merely another sign that the
college is split."

"The college isn't split," cried Rickie, who got excited on this subject
with unfailing regularity. "The college is, and has been, and always
will be