"Yes, and capital fun it was; by the way, the last time I saw your friend Hurst was mounted up in a red baise place that was railed off for the patrons and patronesses, as they called them; there he was in the front row, doing the civil to a very odd-looking old dowager in bright blue velvet, with a neck like an ostrich."
"Thank you," said Leicester, "that's my aunt."
"Well, on that ground, we'll drink her health," said Fane, whose coolness was proverbial. "There was Hurst, however, sitting between her and an uncommonly pretty girl, with dark hair and eyes, dressed in—let me see"——
"Never mind; it was one of my cousins, I suppose," interposed Horace, who was engaged in lighting a cigar at the candle, apparently with more zeal than success.
"Well, we'll drink her health for her own sake, if you have no particular objection. I've no doubt the rest of the company will take my word for her being the prettiest girl on the ground to-day; Hurst would second me if he were here, for I never saw a man making love more decidedly in my life."
"Stuff!" said Horace, pitching his cigar into the fire; "pass that punch."
"What! jealous, Leicester?" said two or three of the party—"preserved ground, eh?"
"Not at all, not at all," said Horace, trying with a very bad grace to laugh off his evident annoyance; "at all events, I don't consider Hurst a very formidable poacher; but what I want to know is, how he didn't come home with Miller and your party?"
"Miller said he was coming up directly, so you can ask him; I really heard nothing of it. Hark, there are steps coming up the staircase now."
It proved to be Miller himself, followed by the under-porter, a good-tempered fellow, who was the factotum of the under-graduates at late hours, when the ordinary staff of servants had left college for the night.