'Yes; papa used to talk about the Little-go. He had dreadful difficulty in passing it. I should be quite satisfied if I could pass the Little-go.'
'I don't think you will find any difficulty in passing it,' he said. 'I do not remember that your father had any special difficulty; I was his tutor. He disappointed me in the Tripos. With his great gifts he ought to have done better.'
It was Lucy's turn to smile now, and to sigh.
'Poor papa!' she said; 'there was a reason for his failure. Perhaps you did not know.'
'No; I knew of no reason.'
'He had just met my mother, and—and he was in love. She got between him and his mathematics; he could think of nothing but my mother. Oh, if you had known her, you would not have wondered.'
The Senior Tutor looked across the table with a new interest in his eyes at the sweet downcast face. If her mother had been like her, he didn't wonder at poor Richard Rae getting only a second class in his Tripos.
'Are you quite sure that you will not fail from the same cause? are you sure that at the momentous time you will not do like your father—that you will not fall in love?'
'No—o,' said Lucy gravely; 'I don't think I shall fall in love. I don't think Girton girls do very often.'
'They do sometimes. They generally end by marrying their coaches.'