form, and much distressed.

At this both universities looked blue, their humble aspiration being,
first to beat off all the external world, and then tackle each other for
the prize.

Just before Edward left his friends for "the sculls," the final heat, a
note was brought to him. He ran his eye over it, and threw it open into
his sister's lap. The ladies read it. Its writer had won a prize poem,
and so now is our time to get a hint for composition:


"DEAR SIR,--Oxford must win something. Suppose we go in for these sculls.
You are a horse that can stay; Silcock is hot for the lead at starting, I
hear; so I mean to work him out of wind; then you can wait on us, and
pick up the race. My head is not well enough to-day to win, but I am good
to pump the Cockney; he is quick, but a little stale--Yours truly,

"ALFRED HARDIE"


Mrs. Dodd remarked that the language was sadly figurative; but she hoped
Edward might be successful in spite of his correspondent's style.

Julia said she did not dare hope it. "The race is not always to the
slowest and the dearest." This was in allusion to yesterday's "foul."

The skiffs started down at the island, and, as they were longer coming up
than the eight oars, she was in a fever for nearly ten minutes. At last,
near the opposite bank, up came the two leading skiffs struggling, both