“Taffy, should you like to go to Oxford?”

“Don’t, mother!”

“But you can.”  The tears in her eyes answered his at once.  She turned to his father.  “Tell him!”

“Yes, my boy, you can go,” said Mr. Raymond; “that is, if you can win a scholarship.  Your mother and I have been talking it over.”

“But—­” Taffy began, and could get no further.

“We have money enough—­with care,” said Mr. Raymond.

But the boy’s eyes were on his mother.  Her cheeks, usually so pale, were flushed; but she turned her face away and walked slowly back to her chair.  “The lace-work,” he heard her say:  “I have been saving—­ from the beginning—­”

“For this?” He followed and took her hand.  With the other she covered her eyes; but nodded.

“O mother—­mother!” He knelt and let his brow drop on her lap.  She ceased to weep; her palms rested on his bowed head, but now and then her body shook.  And but for the ticking of the tall clock there was silence in the room.

It was wonderful; and the wonder of it grew when they recovered themselves and fell to discussing their plans.  In spite of his idolatry, Mr. Raymond could not help remembering certain slights which he, a poor miller’s son, had undergone at Christ Church.  He had chosen Magdalen, which Taffy knew to be the most beautiful of all the colleges; and the news that his name had been entered on the college books for years past gave him a delicious shock.  It was now July.  He would matriculate in the October term, and in January enter for a demyship.  But (the marvels followed so fast on each other’s heels) there would be an examination held in ten days’ time—­actually in ten days’ time—­a “certificate” examination, Mr. Raymond called it—­which would excuse the boy not only the ordinary Matriculation test, but Responsions too.  And, in short, Taffy was to pack his box and go.

“But the subjects?”

“You have been reading them and the prescribed books for four months past.  And I have had sets of the old papers by me for a guide.  Your mathematics are shaky—­but I think you should do well enough.”

It was now Humility’s turn, and the discussion plunged among shirts and collars.  Never had evening been so happy; and whether they talked of mathematics or of collars, Taffy could not help observing how from time to time his father’s and mother’s eyes would meet and say, as plainly as words, “We have done rightly.”  “Yes, we have done rightly.”

And the wonder of it remained next morning, when he awoke to a changed world and took down his books with a new purpose.  Already his box had been carried into old Mrs. Venning’s room, and his mother and grandmother were busy, the one packing and repacking, the other making a new and important suggestion every minute.

He was to go up alone, and to lodge in Trinity College, where an old friend of Mr. Raymond’s, a resident fellow just then abroad and spending his Long Vacation in the Tyrol, had placed his own room at the boy’s service.