BRIGGS was the gayest dog in Balliol. If there was a bonfire in the quad, and if the dons found their favourite chairs smouldering in the ashes, BRIGGS was at the bottom of it. If the bulldogs were led a five-mile chase at one o'clock in the morning, the gownless figure that lured them on was BRIGGS. If the supper at VINNIE'S became so uproarious that the Proctor thought it necessary to interfere, the gentleman that dropped him from the first-floor window was BRIGGS. Anyone else would have been sent down over and over again, but--BRIGGS stroked the Balliol boat: BRIGGS had his cricket blue; BRIGGS was a dead certainty against Cambridge for the quarter and the hundred: in short, BRIGGS was indispensable to the College and the 'Varsity, and therefore he was allowed to stay. But what is this? A change has come over BRIGGS. He is another man. Can it be----? Impossible--and yet? Yes, it began that very night. Everyone has heard of Miss O'GRESS, the Pioneer. She came up to Oxford to lecture; her subject was "Man: his Position and _Raison d'être_." BRIGGS and I went to hear; went in light laughing mood with little fear of any consequences. We listened to the O'GRESS. "There is no doubt," she said, "that Man was intended by Nature to be the Father. For this high calling he should endeavour to fit himself by every means in his power. He should cultivate his body so as to render himself attractive to Woman. He should be tall,"--her eye fell on BRIGGS--"he should be handsome,"--still on BRIGGS--"he should be graceful, he should be athletic."--At this point her eye seemed fairly to feast on BRIGGS, and a curious lurid light lowered in it. She paused a moment. I was sitting next to BRIGGS, and I felt a shiver run through him. I looked at his face, and it was ghastly pale. I asked him in a whisper if he felt faint? He impatiently motioned me to be silent, and remained, as I thought, like a bird paralysed beneath the gaze of a serpent. I heard no more, so anxious was I on my friend's account; nor could I breathe with any freedom until the audience rose and we were once again in the fresh air. The following day there was a garden-party at Trinity. BRIGGS said he was playing for the 'Varsity against Lancashire, and therefore could not go. Imagine my surprise then, when, as I was doing the polite among the strawberries and cream, I caught sight of him slinking down the lime grove at the heels of the O'GRESS. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Yes, it was BRIGGS indeed. The face was his; the features were his; the figure was his; the clothes were his--but, the buoyant step? the merry laugh? where, where, eh! where were they? * * *