fashion, are the blue mountains near Florence, some tall cypresses,
a campanile and a castle perched on the top of a hill--all features
of the landscapes through which they had passed together. In the
foreground are himself and his cousin as monks adoring, also with
haloes, and expressions of mock ecstasy!

On his return Donald went for a few months to Rugby House, the Rugby
School Mission, in order to cram for Oxford. He thereby made a friend,
and learned to love Browning.

After living so long at Brighton, and then in barracks, the beauty of
Oxford was in itself alone a revelation to him. The work there, too,
was entirely congenial. As a gunner subaltern he had been a square peg
in a round hole. As regards the work there had been far too much to
be accepted on authority for one of his fundamental type of mind; the
relations existing between an officer and his men--in peace time,
at any rate--seemed to him hardly human, and the making of quick
decisions, which an officer is continually called upon to do, was
then as always very difficult to him. His tastes, too, unusual in a
subaltern, had made him rather lonely. He found much more in common
with the undergraduate than with the subaltern. Going up as an
"oldster" (22) was to him an advantage rather than otherwise, for his
six years in the Army had given him a certain prestige which was a
help to his natural diffidence, and helped to open more doors to him,
so that he was not limited to any set.

He gained some reputation as a host, for he had the born host's gift
of getting the right people together and making them feel at their
ease. There was also, as a rule, some little individual touch about
his entertainments that made them stand out. His manner, though