Emma Brabazon ran on, the curious words ringing their echo on her ears. CHAPTER X. A Man in a Blaze. The winter holidays soon passed, and the boys came back to college again. "No pistols this time, I hope, Mr. Loftus," was the Head Master's greeting to that gentleman, and it called a mortified expression into the handsome face. Loftus's whiskers were growing, and he had taken to wear a ring in private. Trace smiled pityingly; Dick made fun of both appendages; but their owner knew not which of the two to admire most. The routine of school set in, and the boys were busy; some few studying hard, chiefly those who were to go up for the Oxford examination in June; others going in for idleness, mischief, and sport; playing football, snow-balling, making presents and writing love-letters to Miss Rose. All the candidates for the Orville prize were going up for the Oxford examination; it was essential they should pass that, or else withdraw from the competition for the Orville. But none, whether boys or masters, worked on so patiently and persistently as Mr. Henry, for none had so much to do. His private assistance to Talbot terminated with the holidays; but not so that to George Paradyne. Trace was outrageously angry at the latter fact, and spoke his mind: as Paradyne was going in for the Orville prize, it was _disgraceful_ to give him an advantage that the others did not get. Trace's opinion carried the school with it: Paradyne was shunned worse than before, and resentment prevailed against the German master. "You have only to come to me," Mr. Henry reiterated to them; "I can read with a dozen of you just as well as I can with one. I have no wish surreptitiously to get Paradyne on; I would a great deal rather that you should all keep together, and enjoy the same advantages, one as the other; but if you will not come to me, and he does, the blame rests with you." "Such a thing as coaching a fellow for the Orville prize was never heard of before, you know," retorted Brown major. "I am not coaching him for the Orville prize. I am not coaching him at all, for the matter of that. He reads the classics with me, and I explain away his difficulties in mathematics. It is preparatory to the Oxford examination, not the Orville." "The one implies the other," said the angry boys. And they spurned the assistance for themselves; which, metaphorically speaking, was like cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Talbot would have liked to continue, but could not fly in the teeth of popular prejudice. "Perhaps I'd better give it up," said George Paradyne one day, throwing himself back in his chair at Mr. Henry's. "Give what up?" "Everything. What with the life at college and the life at home, I'm ready to—to—pitch the whole overboard," concluded Mr. George, having hesitated for an expression sufficiently strong to denote his feelings. "You have only to bear up bravely against the one; you'll live it down in time——"