“Royalties,” said Nora shortly, with a democratic nose in air. It appeared that a certain travelled and artistic Princess had been spending the week-end in a ducal house in the neighbourhood. So, too, had the ex-Viceroy. And hearing from him that the only daughter “of those dear Risboroughs” was at Oxford, twelve miles off, her Royal Highness, through him, had “commanded” Constance for tea under the ducal roof on Tuesday. A carriage was to be sent for her, and the ex-Viceroy undertook to convey her back to Oxford afterwards, he being due himself to dine and sleep at the Vice-Chancellor’s the night before the Encænia. “Constance didn’t want to go a bit. She was dreadfully annoyed. But father and mother made her. So she sent a note to Mr. Falloden, and he came round. She was out, but Alice saw him. Alice says he scarcely said a word, but you could feel he was in a towering rage.” “Poor Falloden!” said Sorell. Nora’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, but so good for him! I’m sure he’s always throwing over other people. Now he knows “‘Golden lads and lasses must Like chimney-sweepers come to dust.’” “Vandal!” cried Sorell—“to twist such a verse!” Nora laughed, threw him a friendly nod, and vanished up the steps of the Bodleian. But Falloden’s hour came! The Encænia went off magnificently. Connie, sitting beside Mrs. Hooper in the semicircle of the Sheldonian Theatre, drew the eyes of the crowd of graduates as they surged into the arena, and tantalised the undergraduates in the gallery, above the semicircle, who were well aware that the “star” was there, but could not see her. As the new doctors’ procession entered through the lane made for it by the bedells, as the whole assembly rose, and as the organ struck up, amid the clapping and shouting of the gods in the gallery, Connie and the grey-haired Ambassador, who was walking second in the red and yellow line, grinned openly at each other, while the ex-Viceroy in front, who had been agreeably flattered by the effect produced by his girl-cousin in the august circles of the day before, nodded and smiled at the young lady in the white plumes and pale mauve dress. “Do you know my cousin, Lady Constance Bledlow?—the girl in mauve there?” he said, complacently in the ear of the Public Orator, as they stood waiting till the mingled din from the organ and the undergraduates’ gallery overhead should subside sufficiently to allow that official to begin his arduous task of introducing the doctors-elect. The Public Orator, in a panic lest one of the Latin puns in his forthcoming address should escape him, said hurriedly—“Yes!”—and then “No”—being quite uncertain to which girl in mauve the great man referred, and far too nervous to find out. The great man smiled, and looked up blandly at the shrieking gallery overhead, wondering—as all persons in his position do wonder in each succeeding generation—whether the undergraduates were allowed to make quite such an infernal noise when he was “up.”