nowadays with half so much imagination and charm.'

They looked enviously at the closed door of the Bodleian, they read the
Latin names of the schools just freshly painted at intervals round the
quadrangle, and then Forbes led them out upon the steps in front of the
Radcliffe and S. Mary's, and let them take their time a little.

'How strange that there should be anything in the world,' cried Miss
Bretherton, 'so beautiful all through, so all of a piece as this! I had
no idea it would be half so good. Don't, don't laugh at me, Mr. Forbes. I
have not seen all the beautiful things you other people have seen. Just
let me rave.'

'_I_ laugh at you!' said Forbes, standing back in the shadow of the
archway, his fine lined face, aglow with pleasure, turned towards her.
'_I_, who have got Oxford in my bones and marrow, so to speak! Why, every
stone in the place is sacred to me! Poetry lives here, if she has fled
from all the world besides. No, no; say what you like, it cannot be too
strong for me.'

Mrs. Stuart, meanwhile, kept her head cool, admired all that she was
expected to admire, and did it well, and never forgot that the carriage
was waiting for them, and that Miss Bretherton was not to be tired. It
was she who took charge of the other two, piloted them safely into the
fly, carried them down the High Street, sternly refused to make a stop at
Magdalen, and finally landed them in triumph to the minute at the great
gate of Christchurch. Then they strolled into the quiet cathedral,
delighted themselves with its irregular bizarre beauty, its unexpected
turns and corners, which gave it a capricious fanciful air for all the
solidity and business-like strength of its Norman framework, and as they