"Of course I don't expect you to pay for yourself. I take you."
"How very kind and sweet of you! But—well, do you know, you've encouraged me so about that. First, I feel now as though I could sit down and get it straight away. I will get it, Aunt Beatrice, if only to make that old Professor look foolish."
Lady Thomson, though disappointed in a way, felt that Milly Flaxman was doing credit to her principles, showing a spirit worthy of her family. She did not urge the Roman plan; but content with a victory over "nerves and the usual nonsense," withdrew triumphant to the railway station.
Tims came in when she was gone and heard about the Roman offer.
"You refused, when Aunt Beatrice was going to plank down the dollars? M., you are a fool!"
"No, Tims," Mildred answered, deliberately; "you see, I don't feel sure yet whether I can manage Aunt Beatrice."
CHAPTER V
Oxford is beautiful at all times, beautiful even now, in spite of the cruel disfigurement inflicted upon her by the march of modern vulgarity, but she has three high festivals which clothe her with a special glory and crown her with their several crowns. One is the Festival of May, when her hoary walls and ancient enclosures overflow with emerald and white, rose-color and purple and gold, a foam of leafage and blossom, breaking spray-like over edges of stone, gray as sea-worn rocks. And all about the city the green meadows and groves burn with many tones of color, brilliant as enamels or as precious stones, yet of a texture softer and richer, more full of delicate shadows than any velvet mantle that ever was woven for a queen.