Poor Florence Burton was short of stature, was brown, meagre, and poor-looking.  So said Harry Clavering to himself.  Her small band, though soft, lacked that wondrous charm of touch which Julia’s possessed.  Her face was short, and her forehead, though it was broad and open, had none of that feminine command which Julia’s look conveyed.  That Florence’s eyes were very bright—­bright and soft as well, he allowed; and her dark brown hair was very glossy; but she was, on the whole, a mean-looking little thing.  He could not, as he said to himself on his return home, avoid the comparison, as she was the first girl he had seen since he had parted from Julia Brabazon.

“I hope you’ll find yourself comfortable at Stratton, sir,” said old Mrs. Burton.

“Thank you,” said Harry, “but I want very little myself in that way.  Anything does for me.”

“One young gentleman we had took a bedroom at Mrs. Pott’s, and did very nicely without any second room at all.  Don’t you remember, Mr. B.? it was young Granger.”

“Young Granger had a very short allowance,” said Mr. Burton.  “He lived upon fifty pounds a year all the time he was here.”

“And I don’t think Scarness had more when he began,” said Mrs. Burton.  “Mr. Scarness married one of my girls, Mr. Clavering, when he started himself at Liverpool.  He has pretty nigh all the Liverpool docks under him now.  I have heard him say that butcher’s meat did not cost him four shillings a week all the time he was here.  I’ve always thought Stratton one of the reasonablest places anywhere for a young man to do for himself in.”

“I don’t know, my dear,” said the husband, “that Mr:  Clavering will care very much for that.”

“Perhaps not, Mr. B.; but I do like to see young men careful about their spendings.  What’s the use of spending a shilling when sixpence will do as well; and sixpence saved when a man has nothing but himself, becomes pounds and pounds by the time he has a family about him.”

During all this time Miss Burton said little or nothing, and Harry Clavering himself did not say much.  He could not express any intention of rivalling Mr. Scarness’s economy in the article of butcher’s meat, nor could he promise to content himself with Granger’s solitary bedroom.  But as he rode home he almost began to fear that he had made a mistake.  He was not wedded to the joys of his college hall, or the college common room.  He did not like the narrowness of college life.  But he doubted whether the change from that to the oft-repeated hospitalities of Mrs. Burton might not be too much for hire.  Scarness’s four shillings’-worth of butcher’s meat had already made him half sick of his new profession, and though Stratton might be the “reasonablest place anywhere for a young man,” he could not look forward to living there for a year with much delight.  As for Miss Burton, it might be quite as well that she was plain, as he wished for none of the delights which beauty affords to young men.