Just as Peter was said to be nearly a man and hadn't changed, so the nursery was said to be his study, though it was almost the same in appearance. A student's lamp had replaced the old gas-jet. Shelves, which had held fairy-tale volumes in which truth was depicted with a laughing countenance, now supported serious lexicons from which truth stared out with austerity. But his study retained reminders of those tremulous days when it was still a nursery, and hadn't grown up--when it was the dreaming place of a girl whose arms were empty, in whose heart had begun to echo the patter of tiny footsteps. The tall guard stood before the fireplace, as though it feared that the long youth, who sat continually poring over a book with his eyes shaded by his hand, might shrink into the curly-headed urchin who hadn't known that live coals burned. The laburnum still leant her arms upon the window-sill and tap-tap-tapped, shedding her golden tassels; she gazed in upon him with the same indiscretion as when he was a newcomer, with ungovernable arms and legs, who had to be tubbed night and morning. And she saw the same mother, who had sung him to sleep, peer in at the door on her way to bed, tiptoe across the threshold, ruffle his hair and whisper, “Peter, darling, you can't learn everything between now and morning. Won't you get some rest?” He had exchanged tandem tricycles for lexicons as a means of locomotion to the land of adventure. His little sister could no longer accompany him; but the desire for wisdom had left room for the heart of tenderness. When his lamp shone solitary in the darkened house, he would straighten his shoulders and listen, fancying he heard the angel's whistle. In four months he was going up to Oxford, to live in gray cloisters where boys at once become men. His father shared his anticipation generously. “You're going to recover my lost chances. Lucky chap!” It was summer. He had risen early and sat by his study window reading the Iliad. The house was full of lazy morning sounds--bath-water running, breakfast being prepared, doors opening and shutting, footsteps on the stairs. Outside in the garden the sun dropped golden balls, which tumbled through the trees and rolled across the turf. Birds, hopping in and out the rose-bushes, were industriously foraging. Tripping up the gravel-path, with fresh-plucked flowers in her hands, he could see his little sister, her gold hair blowing. A tap fell upon his door. A maid, rustling in a starched dress, entered. “It's just come, Master Peter.” “For me? A telegram!” He slit it open and read: “_At Henley with 'The Skylark! Can't you come for Regatta? Cherry with me._”