school-fellows "the Knitting-needle," a remarkable example of the
well-known fondness of boys for sharp, short nicknames; but this did
not trouble him now. He and his eagerness, his boundless curiosity,
and his lovable mistakes, were now part and parcel of the new life
of Oxford--new to him, but old as the ages, that, with their rhythmic
recurrent flow, like the pulse of--[_Two pages of fancy writing are
here omitted._ ED.] BRIGHAM and BLACK were in chapel, too. They were
Dons, older than BOB, but his intimate friends. They had but little
belief, but BLACK often preached, and BRIGHAM held undecided views on
life and matrimony, having been brought up in the cramped atmosphere
of a middle-class parlour. At Oxford, the two took pupils, and helped
to shape BOB's life. Once BRIGHAM had pretended, as an act or pure
benevolence, to be a Pro-Proctor, but as he had a sardonic scorn, and
a face which could become a marble mask, the Vice-Chancellor called
upon him to resign his position, and he never afterwards repeated the
experiment.

CHAPTER II.

One evening BOB was wandering dreamily on the banks of the Upper
River. He sat down, and thought deeply. Opposite to him was a wide
green expanse dotted with white patches of geese. There and then, by
the gliding river, with a mass of reeds and a few poplars to fill in
the landscape, he determined to become a clergyman. How strange that
he should never have thought of this before; how sudden it was; how
wonderful! But the die was cast; _alea jacta est_, as he had read
yesterday in an early edition of St. Augustine; and, when BOB rose,
there was a new brightness in his eye, and a fresh springiness in his
steps. And at that moment the deep bell of St. Mary's--[_Three pages
omitted._ ED.]