'And a most fatiguing one, too!' exclaimed Forbes; 'it beats sight-seeing hollow. But, my dear Miss Bretherton, Kendal and I will make it up to you. We'll give you an illustrated history of Oxford on the way to Nuneham. I'll do the pictures, and he shall do the letterpress. Oh! the good times I've had up here--much better than he ever had'--nodding across at Kendal, who was listening. 'He was too proper behaved to enjoy himself; he got all the right things, all the proper first-classes and prizes, poor fellow! But, as for me, I used to scribble over my note-books all lecture-time, and amuse myself the rest of the day. And then, you see, I was up twenty years earlier than he was, and the world was not as virtuous then as it is now, by a long way.' Kendal was interrupting, when Forbes, who was in one of his maddest moods, turned round upon his chair to watch a figure passing along the quadrangle in front of the bay-window. 'I say, Sartoris, isn't that Camden, the tutor who was turned out of Magdalen a year or two ago for that atheistical book of his, and whom you took in, as you do all the disreputables? Ah, I knew it! "By the pricking of my thumbs Something wicked this way comes." That's not mine, my dear Miss Bretherton; it's Shakespeare's first, Charles Lamb's afterwards. But look at him well--he's a heretic, a real, genuine heretic. Twenty years ago it would have been a thrilling sight; but now, alas! it's so common that it's not the victim but the persecutors who are the curiosity.' 'I don't know that,' said young Sartoris. 'We liberals are by no means the cocks of the walk that we were a few years ago. You see, now we have got nothing to pull against, as it were. So long as we had two or three good grievances, we could keep the party together and attract all the young men. We were Israel going up against the Philistines, who had us in their grip. But now, things are changed; we've got our own way all round, and it's the Church party who have the grievances and the cry. It is we who are the Philistines and the oppressors in our turn, and, of course, the young men as they grow up are going into opposition.' 'And a very good thing, too!' said Forbes. 'It's the only thing that prevents Oxford becoming as dull as the rest of the world. All your picturesqueness, so to speak, has been struck out of the struggle between the two forces. The Church force is the one that has given you all your buildings and your beauty, while, as for you liberals, who will know such a lot of things that you're none the happier for knowing--well, I suppose you keep the place habitable for the plain man who doesn't want to be bullied. But it's a very good thing the other side are strong enough to keep you in order.' The conversation flowed on vigorously--Forbes guiding it, now here, now there, while Kendal presently turned away to talk in an undertone to Mrs. Stuart, who sat next him, at the farther corner of the table from Miss Bretherton.