opportunity of diligently examining that young lady's features for about four minutes--not in the least to her confusion, for she scarcely honoured me with a glance the whole time--and then declared the resemblance to mamma quite startling. Mary? Oh, her father's eyes decidedly; upon which the squire, whose pet she appeared to be--I suppose it was the contrast between her quietness and Mrs Leicester's incessant fidgeting that was so delightful--laughed, and took wine with me. Then she took up the subject of my private tastes and habits. Was I fond of riding? Yes. Driving? Pretty well. Reading? Very. Then she considerately hoped that I did not read much by candle-light--above all by an oil-lamp--it was very injurious. I assured her that I would be cautious for the future. Then she offered me a receipt for eye-water, in case I suffered from weakness arising from over-exertion of those organs--declined, with thanks. Hoped I did not read above twelve hours a-day: some young men, she had heard, read sixteen, which she considered as really inconsistent with a due regard to health. I assured her that our sentiments on that point perfectly coincided, and that I had no tendency to excesses of that kind. At last she began to institute inquiries about certain under-graduates with whose families she was acquainted; and the two or three names which I recognised being hunting men, I referred her to Hurst as quite _au fait_ in the sporting circles of Oxford, and succeeded in hooking them into a conversation which effectually relieved me. Leicester, as I could overhear, had been still rather rebellious against going home before the play was over, and was insisting that his being in college by nine was not really material; nor did he appear over-pleased, when, in answer to an appeal from Flora, I said plainly, that the consequences of his "knocking in" late, when under sentence of strict confinement to the regular hour, might not be pleasant--a fact, however, which he himself, though with a very bad grace, was compelled to admit. At last the time arrived for our party to separate: Horace and I to return to Oxford, and the others to adjourn to see _Richard the Third_ performed at the B---- theatre, under the distinguished patronage of the members of the H---- Hunt. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and as Hurst accompanied us to the stable-yard to "start us," as he complacently phrased it, it was clear that he was suffering, like a great many unfortunate individuals in public and private life, under an overweening sense of his own importance. "You'll have an uncommon pleasant drive of it; upon my word you will," he remarked; "it wouldn't do for me to say I would not stay, you know, as Miss Leicester--Mrs Leicester, that is--seemed to make such a point of it; but really"----