and Miss Oswald and Mrs. Martindale. Edie wore the grey dress,
her brother's present, and flitted into the room after her joyous
fashion, full of her first fresh delight at the cloistered quad of
Magdalen.

'What a delicious college, Mr. Berkeley!' she said, holding out
her hand to him brightly. 'Good-morning, Mr. Le Breton; this is
your brother, I know by the likeness. I thought New College very
beautiful, but nothing I've seen is quite as beautiful as Magdalen.
What a privilege to live always in such a place! And what an
exquisite view from your window here!'

'Yes,' said Berkeley, moving a few music-books from the seat in the
window-sill; 'come and sit by it, Miss Oswald. Mrs. Martindale,
won't you put your shawl down? How's the Professor to-day? So sorry
he couldn't come.'

'Ah, he had to go to sit on one of his Boards,' said the old lady,
seating herself. 'But you know I'm quite accustomed to going out
without him.'

Arthur Berkeley knew as much; indeed, being a person of minute
strategical intellect, he had purposely looked out a day on which
the Professor had to attend a meeting of the delegates of something
or other, so as to secure Mrs. Martindale's services without the
supplementary drawback of that prodigious bore. Not that he was
particularly anxious for Mrs. Martindale's own society, which was
of the most strictly negative character; but he didn't wish Edie
to be the one lady in a party of four men, and he invited the
Professor's wife as an excellent neutral figure-head, to keep her