All the young
freshmen behaved with gravity and decorum, but Pen was shocked to see
that atrocious little Foker, who came in very late, and half a dozen of
his comrades in the gentlemen-pensioners' seats, giggling and talking as
if they had been in so many stalls at the Opera. But these circumstances,
it must be remembered, took place some years back, when William the
Fourth was king. Young men are much better behaved now, and besides,
Saint Boniface was rather a fast college.
Pen could hardly sleep at night in his bedroom at the Trencher: so
anxious was he to begin his college life, and to get into his own
apartments. What did he think about, as he lay tossing and awake? Was it
about his mother at home; the pious soul whose life was bound up in his?
Yes, let us hope he thought of her a little. Was it about Miss
Fotheringay, and his eternal passion, which had kept him awake so many
nights, and created such wretchedness and such longing? He had a trick of
blushing, and if you had been in the room, and the candle had not been
out, you might have seen the youth's countenance redden more than once,
as be broke out into passionate incoherent exclamations regarding that
luckless event of his life.
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