The great day had come, big with the fate of the Orville, All Saints' Day, the First of November. In the large hall, made ready for the occasion, wearing their gowns, their trenchers laid beside them, sat the candidates, before the gentlemen who had come from other parts and schools to preside with the masters of the college. It might, on the face of things, have been almost called a solemn farce, this sitting there in conclave, this great examination, confined to one day and to the formal routine of questioning, but that it was known the true adjudicator of the prize was Dr. Brabazon, who had probably decided beforehand upon the victor. Essays and papers on various subjects had been prepared and given in previously by the candidates; these had been examined, and their respective merits adjudicated upon by the masters in their several departments, whose opinions as to individual merit were conveyed to the Head Master in sealed notes. It had been impossible for Mr. Henry to assign the palm in his branches, French and German, to any other than Paradyne; but the just impartial tone of his mind might be seen by the fact that he had appended to his decision a memorandum, calling the Head Master's attention to the fact of George Paradyne's partly foreign education; thus leaving it to Dr. Brabazon whether the proficiency should be allowed to weigh in the contest. He need not have troubled, for, after all, now that the trial had come, Paradyne did not go up for it. A sort of disturbance took place the previous night about Paradyne. Mr. Jebb, made acquainted with the cabal in the quadrangle, had carried the grievance to the Head Master, and the candidates were called into the study, Paradyne excepted. Gall, who had come back, made one of them. Sir Simon Orville was sitting with the Master—which was unexpected. The question to be decided was this: was Paradyne, with his burden of inherited disgrace, to be allowed to compete for the Orville with themselves, who had no such inheritance, and repudiated all possibility of disgrace on their own score, present and future, and for their forefathers in the past. The matter was settled by Sir Simon, who scarcely allowed the Head Master to put in a word edgeways, even to acquiesce. He said that if Paradyne was excluded from the trial, his nephews, Loftus and Trace, should not go up for it, nor Gall either, for he should take upon himself to act for his friend, Gall the elder, who was a very particular enemy to oppression in any shape. It decided the question. Gall and Talbot at once spoke up, saying they had never wished Paradyne not to try; Loftus said the same; Brown major, with round eyes, avowed an opinion that it would be horribly unfair to Paradyne to deprive him of the chance, and he had always privately thought so, though he _had_ gone in for the row against him. Dr. Brabazon dismissed the lot with a covert reprimand, and Trace, speaking a private word with Sir Simon, learnt that the man whom he had seen