The first year that Mordaunt had been at college, Lord Osselstone had made no advance towards cultivating the acquaintance that had so inauspiciously commenced; for, except a very slight salutation in an accidental meeting in the street, Augustus had received no mark whatever even of recognizance. And perhaps this inattention was rendered still more mortifying, as whenever Lord Osselstone was in the neighbourhood of Oxford, he generally received a great deal of company at his house; and several of the young men there, whose connections were amongst his Lordship's associates in London, procured introductions to him, and frequently partook of the elegant hospitality, that always graced his table. Nay, many members of the very college Augustus was in, and some of his own particular friends, received constant invitations to Osselstone Park, from which he alone seemed to be invidiously excluded. On Mordaunt's return to college the following year, he had been much surprised by receiving, in the course of the last week of a term, a formal but polite card of invitation to dinner, to which he sent a still more formal apology, being most happy to have it in his power to allege his intended return to Deane Hall as his excuse; and accordingly he left Oxford the very day, that had been named by his uncle for receiving him. Not, however, that he returned immediately to the Hall. Augustus, though abhorring the excesses into which so many of his contemporaries thoughtlessly plunged, was still not averse to taste slightly the cup of pleasure, if placed within his reach; and, therefore, usually adopted the geography most in fashion at Oxford, by which it is ascertained to a demonstration, that London is the direct road from thence to every other place in England. He had not then been taught, that the deprivation of Selina Seymour's society for a little fortnight was an irreparable loss; and the theatres and the delights of London were sufficiently new to him, to beguile that, and even a longer time. It was just that season of the year when a London winter begins to subside, not into a healthy spring, but into an unwelcome summer, and when the dying embers of gaiety are only kept alive by a few forced sparks of unwearied dissipation. But to Augustus, who had not glared in the full flame, even these had charms; and he frequented, with unsatiated pleasure, all the places of public amusement then open.