1.45 p.m. Waiting for the verdict? How will it be? Somehow the probability seems rather for me this time,—but there,—the Fates are so habitually adverse! I can’t help hoping and yet I _don’t_ expect success. I hope they won’t ‘give an uncertain sound’ and put it off indefinitely! 8 p.m.—Gloria tibi Domine!... At 2 p.m. went to Sir J. Y. S.,—found him out, but met him in the street. ‘Yes, ye’re to be let in to the classes if the Senatus allow ye,—‘ of course with all provisos as to ‘tentative,’ etc. But the great fact is granted,—the thin end of the wedge in, and, though nothing is secure till after the Senatus on Saturday, yet it is an enormous triumph! Three more days’ of calling and entreating and arguing,—then ‘after all these voices ... peace.’ After all, my aspiration to L. E. S. was not so ill-founded,—‘If I can be the first woman to open a British University’—then surely I, like Charlotte Brontë ‘shall have served, my heart and I’—even if I die straightway. For May, June and July, the Botany, Natural History, and Histology, with preparation for the Matriculation exam. Oh, dear, I do feel so exultant.... In one sense I do see all the life-preamble to have been needed. The experience in the United States gave me much more chance of success now,—the life there gave me health really to use the chance when it comes. I hardly fear the future at all;—not the students, nor the work. I am sorry not to be with Mother, but on the whole this must be best, I think. Four years of College! All alone? Surely not literally all the time— spiritually, who knows? What a pity, as I said to U.D. that they will use up gold for toasting-forks! Well, I am sure the hind-wheels may run by faith for a long time now. Perhaps the tangle is beginning to unravel after all these years,—and I shall have to cry, ‘Oh, why didn’t I bear on better then!’ I suppose that is always the feeling when the cloud begins to lift. But _till_ it lifts,— ‘Still it is hard. No darkness will be light Though we should call it light from night till morn.’ And surely the Father pitieth His children.” The numberless quotations in the course of her diary,—however fundamentally optimistic—are almost always in a minor key; but the minor key proves inadequate in the face of this great joy. One can see the dark eyes flash as she goes on,— “‘Fair are the Marcian kalends, The proud ides, when the squadron rides, Shall be Rome’s whitest day.’ Surely I shall have to institute a festival for March 23rd. I wonder who’s the saint. It will be very odd if any other day in my life will be (if all goes well) as vital an epoch as today....