And so the years sped on. Gilbert had left Eton with fair credit, but without having attained any distinction, and was making up his mind what he should do next—a process that occupied him some months, and which, but for the pressure of circumstances, which his mother regarded as cruel, he might never have achieved; but she was well aware that his father could not live for ever, that her fortune would be too small to support him, when divided, as by her father’s will it must be, between her children. The church, the army, the bar, which was it to be? The church was perhaps the easiest; it would not cost Gilbert much trouble to take a respectable degree, and there was a good living in the family; but the living was in Northamptonshire, in a part of the country which Gilbert knew and did not admire; besides, a country life, even with all the amenities of Sunbridge within easy reach, did not suit him. He would have preferred the army if he could have been guaranteed against heavy campaigning, and if the examinations for the higher branches of the service had not been so stiff. As to law, it was horrid all round, absolutely nothing to be got without burning the midnight oil, a process to which, in its classic sense, Gilbert had a special objection, though he testified no aversion to midnight gas. So the months passed, until the time came for Mark to leave school, which he did after having been captain for a couple of years, with a long row of charmingly-bound prize books and a very good scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge. Then Lady Elgitha, finding her son no nearer to a conclusion, decreed that he also should go to Cambridge; all her family who were not in the army had gone to Cambridge; but as Gilbert had not the gift of plodding, a smaller college, his father’s, Corpus, was chosen for him. Boys of his age seldom cared for the church; he would probably come round in a year or two, and then he would be in the right road for it. Mark was sure to do well. He had had nothing to do at Sunbridge but work, whereas poor Gilbert had been so distracted at Eton by games, society, etc., etc. Mark would distinguish himself. He could hardly help doing so, and no doubt would be glad of the opportunity to do his cousin a service in return for the many benefits he and his mother and sister had received from his uncle. The seven years which the boys had spent apart, except during holidays, had widened the natural gulf between them; and when Mark, in obedience to his aunt’s wish, offered to read with Gilbert, he found the task no easy one. Gilbert professed an abomination for mathematics, and by his ignorance of the first principles, seemed to justify the opinion generally entertained of the perfection in which the study is ignored in the old schools. “It’s just horrid, old man!” he exclaimed one morning, after half-an-hour’s study, thrusting his long fingers through his fair hair. “I’m awfully sorry for you having to grind away at it.”