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and after they had chatted a little while, she said to him, "Do tell me ahout your Oxford love?"

"Well, I will, Minnie, if you wish to hear about her. There is one part of the story about which, when I thought it over, I half hesitated whether I ought to tell it you-a young married woman; but I think, on the whole, I had better tell you all."

Minnie looked surprised, rather shocked, and a little confused, and said with warmth, "Nay, Ernest, I would much rather not hear a word of it, if there is anything in it what ever that you could feel a question about the propriety of telling me."

"My dear Minnie, you may trust me. Rest assured that I would not say a word that could bring a blush to your cheek, nor would I offer to you such an indignity as to tell you even part of a story, if there was aught concealed that I had reason to be ashamed of."

"I might have known it. You would have been sadly changed since the days when my father thought of you so highly, if it had been otherwise."

"Ah, Minnie! You must not make me conceited. Indeed, I havenought to be proud of; for things might have so turned out that the story might have been one not fit to be told you."

"You speak in riddles. But assured as I have been by you, I will ask you to tell me your history."

"Well, one afternoon in the summer term, I was] canoeing along the Cherwell with the friend whom I mentioned when this story first came on the tapis yesterday. He and I had for some time previously had a joke about a beautiful face which we had seen amongst the specimen portraits at a photographer's door in the High Street. 'If ever I could be in love with woman born, that is the one,' said he. And we never passed the door

without some chaff about his unknown love. "Well, the afternoon of which I speak, as we were paddling along, side by side, in two of those delightful canoes which one seldom meets with, save on the Thames or the Isis, two ladies approached us along the river side. One of them was short, blonde, and merry looking. The other tall, dark-haired, and as stately as a queen. There are some people, Minnie, in whose movements there seems to me to be a something akin to beautiful music-they are so full of an inexplicable grace. And one of these was the stately dark-haired girl on the banks of the Cherwellmy friend's unknown love — the original of the photograph."

"And was it really the same ?" asked Minnie with eagerness.

"It was she, indeed," replied Ernest. "Neither of us could have any doubt about her face, so well did we know it already."

"Well, but you have not said any thing about the little blonde. She, of course, became in due time your inamorata. Am I not clever, now, to have found it out before you told me, although you pretended to pass her over, and were so ecstatic about your friend's flame ?"

"I will not gratify your curiosity yet," said Ernest.

"What a shame!" said Minnie. "I always like to look on to the end of a romance before I begin it. And this is going to be quite a romance, I know.

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"Well, I shall not keep you long in suspense, at any rate. I'll cut the story as short as I can."

"No, don't do that on any account! I want to hear every word that you can tell me."

"A vos ordres, Madame! I shall endeavour to obey; and so shall proceed in my narrative. You may imagine that we did not feel very well pleased that we were bound to our canoes. We had not even our boating jackets with us. We had

left them in the barge, for the day was very hot. Else we might have been tempted to run the canoes up upon the bank; and if not strike up an acquaintanee on the spot, at any rate lay the foundation at once."

"Well, upon my word! Either the Oxford young ladies must be very free and easy, or the Oxford young gentlemen-Mr. Ernest Fitzgerald and his friend among the number-must possess an enormous amount of brass !"

"But, you see, they were not quite ladies, although very ladylike."

"Very queenly!' say!" Minnie mockingly added.

"And one of them very queenly!" further emended Ernest, nodding at her with a defiant smile. Come, now," he continued, "tell me of any two young ladies of your acquaintance, not absolute muffs, who would have resented a little very evident but very respectful admiration, shown by two young gentlemen whom they might chance to meet in their day's walk."

"I think even the fastest of my young lady acquaintances would have been disposed to walk away very quickly indeed, if they had seen two young gentlemen in flannels leaving their boats and coming rushing up the bank after them !"`

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Minnie, you teaze! Do you think we should have gone about it in that fashion? We shouldn't have 'rushed' !"

"Well, then, never mind-there you were in your boats, without your coats; so you could not have done so without forcing even the queenly young lady to run screaming away-so we'll let that pass. But what did you do? Tell me, and I'll interrupt you no more for ever so long."

"Well," said Ernest, laughing, "I need scarcely tell you what we did then. You already know it. We did nothing. But we talked of

nothing else for the rest of the day, who could they be, where they could live, and how we could get to know them. Then one of us said, 'Let's make a bet about it, as to who'll find them out first.' 'But remember,' said my friend, 'The little one's to be your flame, the big one mine. That must be a compact. As for you, you're sure to be the first to become acquainted with them. You Irishmen have brass enough for anything.""

Minnie laughed, but true to her promise, did not interrupt.

"Well," continued Ernest, "to make a long story short, I was the first to make acquaintance; and it came about in this way. It had become the fashion for the men to have long wooden boxes full of flowers, outside their windows in 'quad.' 'quad.' The fellows who brought the plants about, were so extravagant in their demands, on account of the run upon them, that I, who wanted some for mine, and did not wish to pay through the nose for them, bethought me of a nursery garden, about a mile and-a-half out of the town; and went there one afternoon alone, to pick and choose for myself. At the end of the garden, was the house of the proprietor, and under the window was a particularly brilliant parterre. But I did not look at the parterre very long, for, close by me, there was 'metal more attractive.' At one of the open windows, reading a book, was seated the tall and stately beauty of the meadow ! I was taken aback at the suddenness of the apparition, but

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I must confess that it jarred a little on my ear to hear her continue. 'My Uncle is always so 'appy to see his flowers happreciated! Goodness, gracious!' I exclaimed, mentally,She drops her H's. What will old Pips say to that? (Pips was a nickname we used to have for my friend.) But she is very handsome,' I continued to meditate.

"I think,' said I, after I had said a few commonplaces about the flowers, that I had the pleasure of seeing you in the meadows the other day-on Thursday last.'

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"Oh, now I do remember. one of you nearly upset, just after we had passed you. The shout made us look round, and we expected to have to come to the rescue.'

"This was myself," continued Ernest. "I had said something chaffy to Pips, about his admiration for her, which made him splash at me with his paddle; I had ducked to avoid the splash, and very nearly tipped over in consequence. Telling her-(without betraying the cause), that it was I who had so nearly upset, I added gallantly, I could wish that I had gone over, that I might have had the happiness of being saved from a watery grave by such fair hands.'

"She laughed, and did not seem displeased; so I thought I would open another parallel, and asked if I might make so bold as to request that she would be my guide through the gardens.

"I fear I cannot do myself that pleasure,' she replied. My uncle is very particular, and does not allow me to show the gardens to any of the college gentlemen.'

"Perhaps he is right,' said I, affecting to say it half musingly; ‘if he did allow you, he would never have college men out of his gardens when it became known that there was such a fair cicerone there.""

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"Oh, you naughty humbug," said Minnie. The idea of affecting to say such a thing half musingly. had not a notion that you were such an actor. In future, I shall never know when to believe or to trust you

"But I was not in earnest then. I was merely speaking in a trifling way to a girl whom I admired with my eyes, without loving her in my heart. Do not fear that I should ever say a word to you that I did not feel, Minnie."

Ernest said this avec empressement. Minnie scarce knew what he meant. He was on the verge of making to her a confession of his love for another; and surely he could not have meant to address to her words which implied that she was more to him than merely an old chum. And if he did mean to speak thus, he had no right to do so; for she was no longer a girl-she was the wife of another. And yet, in spite of the impending confession respecting another; in spite of her being a wife, and in spite of all the serious and solemn conversation which they had so recently been holding, Minnie could not help feeling a sensation of pleasure of absolute happiness, when she heard Ernest say to her that to her he could not speak a word that he did not feel; and that he only trifled with those whom he admired with his eyes, but did not love in his heart! Why should he not love her in his heart? Were there to be no loves in the world but husbands and wives? Might not men love women purely; and might not women as purely love men, merely as friends-aye-bosom friends, if their natures were congenial? It seemed a downright violation of nature not to love those with whom one

was on terms of intimacy, and with whom, owing to that intimacy, one knew oneself to be in perfect accord. She might have asked herself why she was so anxious to hear all about Ernest's Oxford love, and what came of it. Yet was it not natural enough to set this down as mere feminine curiosity; or, if it were anything more, simple interest in what interested her friend? She mused on in her own mind; and in consequence missed a little of the thread of this story which Ernest had continued, unconscious of her inattention. When she found her self again listening, Ernest was no longer in conversation with the young lady at the window, but descending the steps of a forcing house In the company of her father aforesaid in the course of which descent his foot slipped, he fell, sprained his ankle desperately," and had to be carried back to the house. And there, of course, his new friend, the queenly young lady attended and nursed him. And of course it was two or three days before he could be removed in a fly back to his college-rooms. And of course, when he got well again, he returned to thank his kind nurse; and returned more than once. But where was "Old Pips" all this time? "My dear fellow," Ernest had said to him, "I'll introduce you to your beauty all in good time. If I had had to remain there a week, which I confess I should not have been very sorry for-ankle and all; you would have come to see me there, and would thus have made her acquaintance. But anyhow, next time I go I'll take you with me." And so he did. But by this time he was quite an old-established friend, so to speak. Poor Pips was merely "his friend Pips"-instead of being the old original Pips-the devoted admirer of her publicly - exhibited photo, "cabinet size," before ever Ernest had begun to think her so queenlike. As Shakespeare says,

The Prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love; But beauty is a witch, beneath whose charms Faith melteth into blood!

And so it was in the case in point. Ernest, when he made the bet about making her acquaintance firsta bet which he won by so unexpected -a chance-had no idea of playing his friend false. But his own heart had played him false; and before he well knew what he was about, he found himself desperately smitten by the charms of the stately and queenlike niece of the nursery gardener-Miss Kate Glover (for that was her name)..

"And what about the little: blonde?" asked Minnie, when he had made his confession."

"Oh, she was only a friend of hers-not her sister, as we had imagined," said Ernest.

"And did "Old Pips" leave you in possession of the field when he found that the Fates had given you such a start of him ?"

"Well, this was the funny part of

it. I felt considerable compunction at having appropriated my friend's love. So when he, seeing that I was as much smitten by the reality as he had been by the photograph, generously offered to withdraw, I said "No! Let us be like the two brothers of classic story, who spent day. about in the heaven which both were not permitted alike to inhabit. You shall walk with Miss Kate one day, and I can walk with her the other. The one who is left out can console himself with her merry and fair-haired companion, who, if she is seldom to be found at the gardens, generally accompanies her in her peregrinations.'"

"And was this curious compact carried out, and with the approval of the young ladies ?" asked Minnie.

"Well, to a certain extent it was. That is to say, I carried out my part of it to the letter. Whenever his turn came to be Miss Kate's com

panion, I was always there to walk with the blonde; but when it was my turn to walk with Miss Kate, why then he stayed away."

"And you have already told me that he used to worm out of you all your confidences, and, on his side, to tell you nothing. I take it that he loved her more deeply than you had an idea of. It delighted him to hear of her, even though it were but to hear what she said to you; and to walk with any but her gave him no pleasure. That was real constancy!"

"I beg your pardon, my little madame. I would not miss seeing her on any account, even though the penalty was to pretend to flirt with her companion.'

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"Penalty! you shocking hypocrite !"

"Well, Pips evidently thought it such; since, even for the sake of seeing Miss Kate he would not undergo it."

"Go away! you are a mere special pleader! But tell me, what was the end of all this? Did you finish by breaking the poor queen's heart? 'Good-bye, Miss Glover' (or 'darling Kate,' as the case might be). 'I'm leaving Oxford, and shall, I fear, never see you again-think of me as a friend, but nothing more!' Or, 'Let it be as though we had never

That sort of heartless thing? Eh? So like you men, who throw away your plaything when you have done with it, heedless whether or no you break it in the fall!"

"Well, Minnie, I was not so heedless or so heartless. I loved that girl tenderly ere we had to part for ever. Although out of my own rank and sphere of life, she was a lady every inch of her: a lady in face, a lady in mien, a lady in mind, and a lady in accomplishments (for she had received an excellent education, could play and sing exquisitely, and had a fund of conversation far above the "chaff" of the ordinary run of "pretty girls.") And when a man

loves a girl as I did her, what does he desire? That she should be his; his, to be ever with him; his constant companion and his friend; his life's mate! And yet I could not ask her to marry me. I would have done so unhesitatingly, despite the difference of station; but I knew well my father's dying fears respecting me. I knew that it was for fear of my making some mèsalliance that he fixed my coming of age seven years later than the usual time of life, and that he ordered that I should travel as soon as I left the University. I could not thus fly in the face of his dying precautions. In a rash moment I opened my heart to another friend-not lips—a man who was neither racketty in his ways, as the general run of our fast men were, nor licentious in his talk. And yet he lived with some of the loosest fellows in college. This man had a secret which I did not know till I told him mine. When I told him. of my love for Kate Glover, he sympathised exceedingly; then told me of a love of his own who lived in a cottage all covered with roses at Woodstock, and lived there at his expense."

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Oh, Ernest!"

He tempted me in every way to follow his example. He was so softspoken-so gentle-so thorougly gentlemanlike in his demeanour, and spoke so lovingly-aye, so respectfully of her-his mistress. He was a man whom, in the wildest company I had never heard joining in coarse jokes or questionable talkyet this was his life, and he did it all for love."

"Ernest do not profane the name of love! That is not love which is not hallowed by heaven! Pardon me. For a young married woman, I am speaking very familiarly to you, a young unmarried man. And yet, having entered on such a topic, I feel that I must give vent to my opinion!"

I thank you for speaking to me so

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