"What is the odds?" inquired the invalid faintly.

"Even on London; two to one against Cambridge; three to one against us."

"Take all my tin and lay it on," sighed the sufferer.

"Fork it out, then. Hallo! eighteen pounds? Fancy having eighteen pounds
at the end of term. I'll get the odds up at the bridge directly. Here's a
lady offering you her smelling-bottle."

Hardie rose and turned round, and sure enough there were two ladies
seated in their carriage at some distance, one of whom was holding him
out three pretty little things enough, a little smile, a little blush,
and a little cut-glass bottle with a gold cork. The last panegyric on
Edward had turned the scale.

Hardie went slowly up to the side of the carriage, and took off his hat
to them with a half-bewildered air. Now that he was so near, his face
showed very pale; the more so that his neck was a good deal tanned; his
eyelids were rather swollen, and his young eyes troubled and almost filmy
with the pain. The ladies saw, and their gentle bosoms were touched: they
had heard of him as a victorious young Apollo trampling on all
difficulties of mind and body; and they saw him wan, and worn, with
feminine suffering: the contrast made him doubly interesting.

Arrived at the side of the carriage, he almost started at Julia's beauty.
It was sun-like, and so were her two lovely earnest eyes, beaming soft
pity on him with an eloquence he had never seen in human eyes before; for
Julia's were mirrors of herself; they did nothing by halves.