"Are you at Cambridge?"

"No, at Oxford—Magdalen."

"And what are you going to be?"

"Oh! I don't know; anything that's not too hard work. My father says I ought to settle, but it's very hard. Every time I come down, he wants to know if I've made up my mind. But there's time enough yet."

"Don't you think it's better to have an aim in view?"

"Yes, I suppose it is. Oh I shall think of something one of these days. You were asking about the Douglases?"

"Yes; do you mind telling me what you know about them?"

"Not at all. They're jolly, all of them; you're sure to like them!"

"What does the family consist of?"

"Well, there's Mrs. Douglas; he's dead—was a parson, I believe, and had a church in Sheffield—he's been dead years now; we never knew him."