Nor was all always peaceful even within the confines of the College. There were nights (mostly after some athletic triumph) when the Quad rang to merry choruses and catches (sometimes) uncomplimentary to the dons. But these occasions were rare; the rowing women objected to it because, for the greater part of the year, they were in training; and the working set, who had great influence in the College at this time, were loath to be disturbed at their studies. I myself belonged to the dancing set my first two terms, but joined the working set afterwards as the result of a personal quarrel with Lady Anne Forres, the leader of the dancing set, who suspected me, I think, of rivalry. We were not much divided up into cliques at this time, though I believe that later on the admission of Astor scholars from America and the colonies tended to break up the solidarity of the College. In summer, there were fresh conflicts and fresh delights. I did not, indeed, play tennis, because my dear mother thought it was unladylike—it would have been absurd, of course, to play College matches in skirts! But I played cricket fairly regularly; and I am not ashamed to be thought old-fashioned when I say that there was a good deal of fun to be got out of the game. It was slow, I admit (not so slow, perhaps, as when my great-grandfather used to play it in a top-hat!), but there were exciting moments when the scores were nearly equal, and sometimes plenty of exercise. But I confess that I preferred the river, although I was never a rowing woman. They were great evenings, when you would take down your dinner in a picnic basket to Timms’ boat-house, and launch your frail motor-punt just as the soft chimes of Keble struck eight o’clock; when, some half-an-hour later, you would find that you had got beyond the houses and the press of craft, and would tether “the old bus” to a willow, and bathe, and spread out your dinner on the mown grass; when, the dinner cleared and the cigars lighted, you would float home again downstream to the gentle music of a hundred distant gramophones, and think, who knows what thoughts? under the velvet skies of the June evening.