When that train pulled up with a jerk at the platform the three had already been waiting for it half an hour, for their impatience had made them early, and long habit had made the train late. As soon as they could find their mother and Admiral Chris the boys pounced upon them, and in the first burst of eager welcome the cloud vanished. But it reappeared again before the party reached the hotel, and the Admiral was as nearly angry as he knew how to be on finding that the rooms taken for himself and sister were, as usual, just the best in the hotel. The dinner was a poor and spiritless affair, and Snap noticed that the old gentleman, instead of lighting a cigar after leaving the table, took at once to a pipe. 'Why, sir,' remonstrated Snap, 'you are false to your principles for the first time in my experience of you; I thought that you always told us that the cigar was a necessary appetiser, to be taken before the solid comfort of the evening pipe.' 'Nonsense, my boy, nonsense, I never said that. A cigar is a poor thing at best. Nothing like a pipe for a sailor,' blurted out the Admiral, looking annoyed at Snap's innocent speech, and glancing nervously in Mrs. Winthrop's direction, while over her sweet face a cloud passed as she too noticed for the first time this little change in her brother-in-law's habits. Coming up to her eldest boy's chair, and leaning caressingly against him, the little mother turned Frank's head towards her, so that she could look down into his honest blue eyes. 'What is it, little mother; do you want a kiss in public? For shame, dear!' laughed Frank. 'Tell me, Frank,' she said, taking no notice of his chaff, 'do you want very much to go to Oxford?' 'Right away, mother? No, thank you. I am doing very well here.' 'But when you leave Fernhall, Frank?' 'Well, yes, mother! You wouldn't have me go to Cambridge, because, you see, all my own friends are at the Nose,' replied Frank. 'The Nose?' asked Mrs. Winthrop, looking puzzled. 'Brazen Nose, dear, Brazen Nose!--the college, you know, at which Dick and the Rector's son now are.' 'But what should you say, Frank, if you could not go either to Oxford or Cambridge?' persisted his mother. 'Conundrum, mother. I give it up,' answered the boy lazily; 'call me early, dear, to-morrow, and ask me an easier one.' Poor little lady, the tears came into her eyes as the smile grew in his, and at last Frank saw it. Jumping up and putting his arm round her, he asked: 'Why, mother dear, what is it? I was joking. I'll go anywhere you want.' 'Yes, my boy, I know,' sobbed the little woman, 'but you can't go either to Oxford or Cambridge. There, Chris, tell them the rest,' and, slipping out of Frank's arms, she left the room. After this beginning the whole story was soon told. The Admiral's pipe had gone out, his collar seemed to be choking him, but, now that he was fairly cornered, he didn't flinch any longer.