He stayed some hours at the vicarage. Both Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose thought him changed in the short time which had elapsed since they had seen him. He had grown more grave; he was certainly more of a man. The great contest he had just sustained with so much honour had left upon his young face its mark, an air of power which had not formerly been visible there; even his voice seemed to have grown deeper and rounder, and his words carried more weight. The good vicar, who had seen several generations of students, already distinguished in John Short the budding "don," and rubbed his hands with great satisfaction. John asked few questions but found himself obliged to answer many concerning his recent efforts. He would have liked to say something about Mrs. Goddard, but he remembered with some awe and much aversion the circumstances in which he had last quitted the vicarage, and he held his peace; whereby he again rose in Mrs. Ambrose's estimation. He made up for his silence by speaking effusively of the squire's kindness in asking him to the Hall; forgetting perhaps the relief he had felt when he escaped from Billingsfield after Christmas without being again obliged to shake hands with Mr. Juxon. Things looked very differently now, however. He felt himself to be somebody in the world, and that distressing sense of inferiority which had perhaps been at the root of his jealousy against the squire was gone, swallowed in the sense of triumph. His face was pale, perhaps, from overwork, but there was a brilliancy in his eyes and an incisiveness in his speech which came from the confidence of victory. He now desired nothing more than to meet the squire, feeling sure that he should receive his congratulations, and though he stayed some hours in conversation with his old friends, in imagination he was already at the Hall. The squire had not come down to meet him, as he had proposed, but he had sent his outlandish American gig with his groom to fetch John. While he was at the vicarage the latter was probably too much occupied with conversation to notice that Mr. Ambrose seemed preoccupied and changed, and the vicar was to some extent recalled to his usual manner by the presence of his pupil. Mrs. Ambrose had taxed her husband with concealing something from her ever since the previous day, but the good man was obstinate and merely said that he felt unaccountably nervous and irritable, and begged her to excuse his mood. Mrs. Ambrose postponed her cross-examination until a more favourable opportunity should present itself. John got into the gig and drove away. He was to return with the squire to dinner in the evening, and he fully expected that Mrs. Goddard and Nellie would be of the party--it seemed hardly likely that they should be omitted. Indeed, soon after John had left a note arrived at the vicarage explaining that Mrs. Goddard was much better and would certainly come, according to Mrs. Ambrose's very kind invitation.