The Balliol Scholarship was, however, too important a reality to leave the young candidate much time to consider his position—and Colin’s history would be too long, even for the patience of his friends, if we were to enter into this part of his life in detail. Everybody knows he won the scholarship; and, indeed, neither that, nor his subsequent career at Balliol, are matters to be recorded, since the chronicle has been already made in those popular University records which give their heroes a reputation, no doubt temporary, but while it lasts of the highest possible flavour. He had so warm a greeting from Sir Thomas Frankland that it would have been churlish on Colin’s part had he declined{338} the invitations he received to the Castle, where, indeed, Miss Matty did not want him just at that moment. Though she was not the least in the world in love with him, it is certain that between the intervals¹ of her other amusements in that genre², the thought of Colin had often occurred to her mind. She thought of him with a wonderful gratitude³ and tenderness sometimes, as of a man who had actually loved her with the impossible love—and sometimes with a ring of pleasant laughter, not far removed from tears. Anything “between them” was utterly⁴ impossible, of course—but, perhaps, all the more for that, Miss Matty’s heart, so much as there was remaining of it, went back to Colin in its vacant moments, as to a green spot upon which she could repose⁵ herself, and set down her burden of vanities for the time. This very sentiment, however, made her little inclined to have him at the Castle, where there was at present a party staying, including, at least, one man of qualifications worthy⁶ a lady’s regard. Harry⁷ and his cousin had quarrelled so often that their quarrel at last was serious, and the new man was cleverer than Harry, and not so hard to amuse; but it was difficult to go over the well-known ground with which Miss Frankland was so familiar in presence of one whom she had put through the process in a still more captivating fashion, and who was still

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