A firm footstep came down one of the stairways; a man of about forty passed out into the court--Howard Kennedy, Fellow and Classical Lecturer of the College. His thick curly brown hair showed a trace of grey, his short pointed beard was grizzled, his complexion sanguine, his eyebrows thick. There were little vague lines on his forehead, and his eyes were large and clear; an interesting, expressive face, not technically handsome, but both clever and good-natured. He was carelessly dressed in rather old but well-cut clothes, and had an air of business-like decisiveness which became him well, and made him seem comfortably at home in the place; he nodded and smiled to the undergraduates at the gate, who smiled back and saluted. He met a young man rushing down the court, and said to him, "That's right, hurry up! You'll just be in time," a remark which was answered by a gesture of despair from the young man. Then he went up the court towards the Hall, entered the flagged passage, looked for a moment at the notices on the screen, and went through into the back court, which was surrounded by a tiny cloister. Here he met an elderly man, clean-shaven, fresh-coloured, acute-looking, who wore a little round bowler hat perched on a thick shock of white hair. He was dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, with a black tie, and wore rather light grey trousers. One would have taken him for an old-fashioned country solicitor. He was, as a matter of fact, the Vice-Master and Senior Fellow of the College--Mr. Redmayne, who had spent his whole life there. He greeted the younger man with a kindly, brisk, ironical manner, saying, "You look very virtuous, Kennedy! What are you up to?" "I am going for a turn in the garden," said Howard; "will you come with me?" "You are very good," said Mr. Redmayne; "it will be quite like a dialogue of Plato!" They went down the cloister to a low door in the corner, which Howard unlocked, and turned into a small old-fashioned garden, surrounded on three sides by high walls, and overlooking the river on the fourth side; a gravel path ran all round; there were a few trees, bare and leafless, and a big bed of shrubs in the centre of the little lawn, just faintly pricked with points of green. A few aconites showed their yellow heads above the soil. "What are those wretched little flowers?" said Mr. Redmayne, pointing at them contemptuously. "Oh, don't say that," said Howard; "they are always the first to struggle up, and they are the earliest signs of spring. Those are aconites." "Aconites? Deadly poison!" said Mr. Redmayne, in a tone of horror. "Well, I don't object to them,--though I must say that I prefer the works of man to the works of God at all times and in all places. I don't like the spring--it's a languid and treacherous time; it always makes me feel that I wish I were doing something else."