"A tale out of season is as music in mourning."
--ECCLESIASTICUS xxii. 6.




MISS SOPHIA MALTRAVERS' STORY

CHAPTER I


Your father, John Maltravers, was born in 1820 at Worth, and succeeded
his father and mine, who died when we were still young children. John
was sent to Eton in due course, and in 1839, when he was nineteen years
of age, it was determined that he should go to Oxford. It was intended
at first to enter him at Christ Church; but Dr. Sarsdell, who visited us
at Worth in the summer of 1839, persuaded Mr. Thoresby, our guardian, to
send him instead to Magdalen Hall. Dr. Sarsdell was himself Principal of
that institution, and represented that John, who then exhibited some
symptoms of delicacy, would meet with more personal attention under his
care than he could hope to do in so large a college as Christ Church.
Mr. Thoresby, ever solicitous for his ward's welfare, readily waived
other considerations in favour of an arrangement which he considered
conducive to John's health, and he was accordingly matriculated at
Magdalen Hall in the autumn of 1839.