Some of the
reflected rays of this splendour were allowed to fall upon Ernest
himself. Theobald said he was "willing to hope"--this was one of his
tags--that his son would turn over a new leaf now that he had left
school, and for his own part he was "only too ready"--this was another
tag--to let bygones be bygones.
Ernest, not yet having his name on the books, was able to dine with his
father at the Fellows' table of one of the other colleges on the
invitation of an old friend of Theobald's; he there made acquaintance
with sundry of the good things of this life, the very names of which were
new to him, and felt as he ate them that he was now indeed receiving a
liberal education. When at length the time came for him to go to
Emmanuel, where he was to sleep in his new rooms, his father came with
him to the gates and saw him safe into college; a few minutes more and he
found himself alone in a room for which he had a latch-key.
From this time he dated many days which, if not quite unclouded, were
upon the whole very happy ones. I need not however describe them, as the
life of a quiet steady-going undergraduate has been told in a score of
novels better than I can tell it.
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