I had a narrow
escape, I know, for one. But, Miss Dodd, if you knew how far your
brother's performance on the river outweighs a mere slip in the schools,
in all university men's eyes, the dons' and all, you would not make this
bright day end sadly to Oxford by crying. Why, I could find you a
thousand men who would be ploughed to-morrow with glory and delight to
win one such race as your brother has won two."
Julia sighed again. But it sounded now half like a sigh of relief--the
final sigh, with which the fair consent to be consoled.
And indeed this improvement in the music did not escape Hardie. He felt
he was on the right tack: he enumerated fluently, and by name, many good
men, besides Dean Swift, who had been ploughed, yet had cultivated the
field of letters in their turn; and, in short, he was so earnest and
plausible, that something like a smile hovered about his hearer's lips,
and she glanced askant at him with furtive gratitude from under her silky
lashes. But it soon recurred to her that this was rather a long interview
to accord to "a stranger," and under the moon; so she said a little
stiffly, "And was this what you were good enough to wish to say to me,
Mr.
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