Oxford was Fan’s Rome or Jerusalem. She had visited Oxford more than once in Commemoration Week, and though that was hardly the proper season at which to estimate academical glories, it had been enough for her to see her brother at home among distinguished men and refined women. Fan secretly hoped that Oliver’s destination, with her own in his company, would be Oxford. In spite of what he had told her, his university town still stood to her in the light of the capital of the great English empire of letters—not a Bohemian empire, but such a dignified, decorous, learned empire as Fan’s soul loved, to which Oliver had a birthright and title, to which his claim would be Fan’s passport. Nowhere else, she fancied, could they without pretence get into such good society, escaping finally from the penalties of the most unvarnished trading antecedents. ‘Everything in its own place,’ said Oliver, lightly. ‘I am fond of my “’Varsity,” too—of every stone of my college. I think Cambridge is the only place worthy of being named in the same breath with Oxford. I do not give a rap for the pretensions of Salamanca, or Padua, or Paris, or Heidelberg, or Zurich, or Edinburgh, matched with those of Oxford and Cambridge. I am as besottedly proud of my “’Varsity” as an Oxonian and a John Bull can be. But after all, my connection with it, though I shall never forget it, was a passing accident compared to my life-long connection with this place.’ Fan’s hopes fell a little. Oliver’s words, however appreciative of his ‘’Varsity,’ did not indicate an intention of returning to it and settling in it. ‘I am afraid it will cost you a pang to leave Friarton Mill,’ suggested Fan, still feeling her way to her object, as the sincerest woman will sometimes. ‘But I am not going to leave it,’ said Oliver, with quiet assurance, staring down into the water, as if in contradiction of the words which the poet had put into its mouth— ‘Men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever.’ ‘At least, not so long as I can help it, I hope,’ Oliver corrected himself quickly; ‘not till I have to make that exodus which lies before every mother’s son of us.’ ‘My dear boy, what are you thinking of?’ Fan was driven to ask, in discomfited surprise and bewilderment. ‘Father was not able to make you independent of a profession. You may, indeed, become one of the masters of the Grammar School in the town here. But oh! Oliver, I am sure it would be a great mistake. The Fremantles and the Wrights,’ naming the families of two of Oliver’s old patrons among the masters, ‘have been kind, but even they, while they are ready to acknowledge your honours, don’t forget that you are the son of a tradesman.’