He had never given a man this advice--perhaps it was not needed. He watched her, out of his window, cross the court. She did not happen to pick up the thing by the way as she had promised. Her step was less elastic, he noticed, than it used to be, and her face was paler--paler and thinner. She would never, never be young again, and life would never open afresh. There is only one young life, one time of roses, one sweet blossoming time, and it was just a question in the Tutor's mind, as he watched Lucy cross the court, whether the loss of this were worth all the mathematics in the world. CHAPTER IX. A WOMAN'S PARLIAMENT. Lucy saw Pamela Gwatkin once only during the day, and that was at dinner. She only caught a far-off glimpse of her at the High table. Pamela very often sat at the 'High' among the Dons. The younger Dons were very fond of her: her opinions kept pace with theirs--they were very advanced opinions--and sometimes they outran them. She would be a Don herself some day, and she would be a pioneer in quite a new school of thought. Lucy watched her with a feeling of awe as she sat among those great minds eating gooseberry pie--Lucy wouldn't have sat there for the world. The presence of so much learning would have taken away her appetite. The presence of the Master of St. Benedict's at the dinner-table never took away her appetite, but the dear old thing never talked above her head. He was very fond of recalling those old days, as he sat at meat, when Dick--not Lucy's father, but her great-grandfather--used to drive a team afield, and his good wife kept the stall in the butter market. But the President and the Dons of 'Newe' never discussed such commonplace topics. They talked of literature, philosophy, science, with a fine breadth of handling which is peculiar to a woman's college. Pamela Gwatkin was in her right place among them. There was the weekly political meeting held after Hall--a little miniature House of Commons--where the affairs of the nation were discussed, a foretaste of what will be by-and-by, when things are rearranged. When the House took its seat at nine o'clock, Lucy found herself in the Opposition, and a long way off from the benches occupied by the Government of the country. Lucy only represented an insignificant little borough that nobody else would stoop to represent. She had a little freehold in it--her only freehold--six feet of earth beneath the east window of her father's church at Thorpe Regis. Most people have a freehold of this sort, but it does not always give them a voice in the affairs of the nation. Lucy was returned unopposed on the strength of her little freehold, and as her views, if she had any, were not at all advanced, she found herself in the minority.