At the end of the year an event happened which affected Lucy's views on the subject of her Tripos; that cut short, in a not wholly unprecedented way, her University career. At the close of the October term, the Master of St. Benedict's gave what is known in undergraduate parlance as a 'Perpendicular.' At this particular 'Perpendicular' all the Dons and Donesses in Cambridge were present to do honour to the new mistress of the lodge, and the whole suite of reception-rooms, that had been the subject of such heartburnings to Lucy, were thrown open. It was the first time that she had ever seen them lit up and filled with such a goodly company. She was there with Maria Stubbs and Pamela Gwatkin, as her cousin's guests. She had not altered much during the year; only her eyes were steadier, and she did not blush so readily. She ought to have been blushing now, for she had just met an old friend who had taken her hand when they met and had forgotten to give it up again. It was Pamela Gwatkin's brother. He was in Orders now; he had been ordained nearly a year, and held a curacy in a village in the West-country, with the magnificent stipend of one hundred and fifty pounds a year. He had gone through all the familiar rooms of the old lodge with Lucy, but he had hardly recognised them again. Only in the long gallery the faces of the old Masters looked down on him as of old, with a stately welcome in their grave eyes. He had no idea that the dark, musty old place could have been so changed. He passed through room after room, with Lucy's arm in his; and presently, when she was tired, he sat down in the deep-recessed window of the oak-panelled saloon, where the Masters hold their annual feasts and eat their state dinners. Full-length portraits of old Masters and Fellows hung on the walls, and above their massive gilded frames--they had been regilt lately--a rich carved frieze of oak went round the room; and above the great open fireplace was a quaint carven mantelpiece that was a sight to see. It was a room to delight the soul of an antiquary. Lucy watched Pamela's brother as his eyes travelled round the room and took in all these things. He was such a simple, transparent fellow that she could not help reading his thoughts. 'What are you thinking of, Eric?' she asked him presently. She called him Eric. 'I--I?' he said, with a blush. 'I was wondering why you gave up this--how you _could_ give up this!' 'Did you wonder?' she said softly, and her eyes, he saw, were very sweet and tender. He thought she lingered on the 'you,' and he looked at her with a strange trouble in his eyes. 'Yes,' he said with a sigh, 'I don't think many women would have--have given this up lightly. You must have had a reason?' 'Yes,' she said in her low voice, with a quiver in it, and that droop of her pretty mouth that he remembered so well; 'I had a reason.' Something in her manner more than in her voice struck him, and the trouble in his eyes deepened.