everything in in duplicate, and I don't mind her taking things out of one cupboard; but they are both emptied simultaneously.'

'Why don't you lock one cupboard?'

'I do, with a Bramah; but Bramah is a false god.'

'You are just as you used to be, Mavors,' returned the Canon, laughing; 'never satisfied. Before you took the best degree in your year, it might have been excusable, but now-Tutor of your College, a man said to know more about Plato'

6

'Said to know!' broke in Mavors, with irritation; confound you, I do know more about Plato than any man alive.'

'Just think of that,' said the Canon, slily. 'On such a pinnacle, and yet not satisfied.'

'Where is the comfort of a pinnacle?' retorted the Tutor, peevishly. 'Give me a Canon's stall. For you to grumble is indeed ingratitude to fortune. You've your rooms here the best in the College. Your house

on the Trumpington Road kept for you by a devoted sister, and ornamented by the presence of the most charming of wards. Satisfied indeed! It is my belief that if you married your ward, you wouldn't be quite content even then.'

'I am quite sure I shouldn't,' said the Canon, laughing outright; 'and I don't think Sophy would be quite content either. That's another thorn in my lot, Mavors; my responsibility as regards that girl.'

A crumpled leaf in your bed of roses, you mean, Aldred; I wish I had such a thorn. How charmingly she makes your coffee for you! How neatly she catalogues your library!'

'I believe that is your notion of a wife's perfection, Mavors. If so, why don't you propose to Sophy. You shall have her guardian's full consent, I promise you; now do, do.'

The Rev. Henry Mavors, tutor of Trinity

College, and the terror of German commentators, blushed like a girl. Perhaps it was knowing so much about Plato that rendered the notion of marriage alarming to him, or perhaps the Canon had unconsciously touched some secret chord in his friend's breast. saw his advantage-it was cruel of him, but he did not know how cruel-and pushed it home.

He

'If you are shy about it, my dear Mavors,' he continued, 'I'll speak to Sophy myself. Only you must make up your mind. You see if she asks you, you will hardly like to refuse a lady.'

'I don't think a lady—or at all events so young a lady-would quite appreciate a jest of that kind,' said Mr. Mavors, gravely, and still very red.

'That shows how little you know about her, my dear friend,' said the Canon, drily; she would enjoy it immensely.'

It was not only that, being a widower, he

was more 'at ease in Zion,' as regarded the fair sex, than his celibate friend, and spoke with a certain cynical lightness; he had in view a particular case.

'Between ourselves, my dear fellow,' he continued (for it is a matter which I should certainly not speak about to any one but an old friend like you), our dear little Sophy is a source of great anxiety to us.'

'You don't seem to feel it so, my dear Aldred,' observed the other, with sympathetic interest; at all events in her company.'

6

'I would not let her know that I feel it for worlds; both my sister and I greatly enjoy her companionship, she is so naïve and engaging; but I can't help wishing the old Queen's Counsel had not fixed upon me for her guardian. I have not a word to say against the dear little maid, mind; but she's flighty-not to say flirty. At Portsmouth, where she last came from, it did not signify, I suppose; soldiers and sailors are not apt

to take

young ladies au sérieux, because they mean nothing themselves; but with undergraduates it is different.'

The Tutor frowned. But why do you ask undergraduates—that is, such as you have any reason to disapprove of-to your house?'

'My dear fellow, Sophy asks them, not I; or rather she is the magnet that attracts them. They meet her at tennis parties, balls, and what not, and then ask leave to call.' 'Then I should not give them leave.'

home, my

'But they call in order to request the permission; and as I am always away from silence is taken for consent. Sophy welcomes them, and my sister has not the heart to say "You mustn't come, sir." You see, it's very hard for the poor girl, shut up all day with Maria or an old fellow like me.'

'You're not a particularly old fellow,' observed the Tutor, with an air of irritation,