what-was-good-enough-for-my-father-is-good-enough-for-me sort of feel-


[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 15]

ing, it had never occurred to him that his son should be brought up
otherwise than he himself had been. The setting-out of Charles
Larkyns for college, two years before, had suggested no other thought
to Mr. Green's mind, than that a university was the natural sequence
of a public school; and since Verdant had not been through the career
of the one, he deemed him to be exempt from the other.

The motherly ears of Mrs. Green had been caught by the word
"matriculation," a phrase quite unknown to her; and she said, "If
it's vaccination that you mean, Mr. Larkyns, my dear Verdant was done
only last year, when we thought the small-pox was about; so I think
he's quite safe."

Mr. Larkyns' politeness was sorely tried to restrain himself from
giving vent to his feelings in a loud burst of laughter; but Mary
gallantly came to his relief by saying, "Matriculation means, being
entered at a university. Don't you remember, dearest mamma, when Mr.
Charles Larkyns went up to Oxford to be matriculated last January two
years?"

"Ah, yes! I do now. But I wish I had your memory, my dear."

And Mary blushed, and flattered herself that she succeeded in looking
as though Mr. Charles Larkyns and his movements were objects of
perfect indifference to her.