call upon the Master; the porter directed them where to go, and they
sent up their cards. Dr. Portman was at home, and they were soon
introduced to his presence.

Instead of the stern, imposing-looking personage that Mr. Verdant
Green had expected to see in the ruler among dons, and the terror of
offending undergraduates, the master of Brazenface was a mild-looking
old gentleman, with an inoffensive amiability of expression and a
shy, retiring manner that seemed to intimate that he was more alarmed
at the strangers than they had need to be at him. Dr. Portman seemed
to be quite a part of his college, for he had passed the greatest
portion of his life there. He had graduated there, he had taken
Scholarships there, he had even gained a prize-poem there; he had
been elected a Fellow there, he had become a Tutor there, he had been
Proctor and College Dean there; there, during the long vacation, he
had written his celebrated "Disquisition on the Greek Particles,"
afterwards published in eight octavo volumes; and finally, there he
had been elected Master of his college, in which office, honoured and
respected, he appeared likely to end his days. He was unmarried;
perhaps he had never found time to think of a wife; perhaps he had
never had the courage to propose for one; perhaps he had met with
early crosses and disappointments, and had shrined in his heart a
fair image that should never be displaced. Who knows? for dons are
mortals, and have been undergraduates once.

The little hair he had was of a silvery white, although his eye-brows
retained their black hue; and to judge from the fine fresh-coloured
features and the dark eyes that were now nervously twinkling upon Mr.
Green, Dr. Portman must, in his more youthful days, have had an ample
share of good looks. He was dressed in an old-fashioned reverend