It was certainly a great contrast to the humiliated condition in which he came home to think of all the immense preparations that were making to do the young scapegrace honour. Very far from pointing a moral to young men of Tom’s tastes was his triumphant coming of age after the academical disgrace. No disgrace, however, can hinder a young man from attaining his twenty-first birthday, nor change the universal custom which makes that moment a period of congratulation and celebration, as if it were by any virtue of his that the boy became a man. It occurred to some of the family counsellors who had to be summoned for the great occasion that, considering his past behaviour, Tom’s majority should be passed over with as little merry-making as possible. But Beaufort once more was the young fellow’s champion. He was not the sort of man to take lightly the stigma of the University, and therefore he was listened to with all the more attention. ‘I must repeat again,’ he said, ‘that there is nothing in all this to prevent Tom from doing well enough in his natural position. It might be ruin to some boys, but not to him. I never expected him to do anything at Oxford, and I am not surprised at what has happened. But everybody is not thinking of this as we are. A great many people will never have heard of it, nor would they attach any importance to it if they did hear. I have told you before, Carry, that the best of women are unjust to boys. It is very natural that it should be so. Even now, however, there is nothing to prevent Tom from doing very well.’ ‘The thing is that he seems to be getting a reward for his foolishness, instead of any punishment,’ said Edith Erskine, who was, as she thought, upholding her sister’s view. As for Carry herself, she had said nothing. To discuss her boy’s follies was more than she was capable of. She could not silence the others who spoke, but she only looked at them, she could not speak. ‘He has been foolish at Oxford, and the authorities there have punished him; but we have no right to put back the clock in his life, and keep him out of his rights for anything he has done. I am sure that is what his mother thinks----’ ‘His mother has always been too indulgent, and this is what has come of it,’ said old Lord Lindores, shaking his head. He would have sent Tom off to Africa or somewhere with an unfortunate if highly paid bear-leader from the University to keep him in order, if Tom would have submitted on the verge of his lawful freedom to any such bondage; but this his grandfather did not take into account. He shook his head over Carry’s indulgence, and did not at all understand the look which she turned upon him and in which there were unspeakable things. ‘You may be angry if you please, my dear, but I must tell you my opinion. The boy has been spoilt all along. He is not of a nature to stand it; he wanted a vigorous hand over him. You should have remembered the stock of which he came.’