CHAPTER XX.
If the end of the vacation were a relief on Lucy's account, Albinia
would gladly have lengthened it on Gilbert's. Letters from his tutor
had disquieted his father; there had been an expostulation followed
by promises, and afterwards one of the usual scenes of argument,
complaint, excuse, lamentation, and wish to amend; but lastly, a
murmur that it was no use to talk to a father who had never been at
the University, and did not know what was expected of a man.
The aspect of Oxford had changed in Albinia's eyes since the days of
her brother. Alma Mater had been a vision of pealing bells, chanting
voices, cloistered shades, bright waters--the source of her most
cherished thoughts, the abode of youth walking in the old paths of
pleasantness and peace; and she knew that to faithful hearts, old
Oxford was still the same. But to her present anxious gaze it had
become a field of snares and temptations, whither she had been the
means of sending one, unguarded and unstable.
Once under the influence of a good sound-hearted friend, he might
have been easily led right, but his intimacy with young Dusautoy
seemed to cancel all hope of this, and to be like a rope about his
neck, drawing him into the same career, and keeping aloof all better
influences. Algernon, with his pride, pomposity, and false
refinement, was more likely to run into ostentations expenditure,
than into coarse dissipation, and it might still be hoped that the
two youths would drag through without public disgrace; but this was
felt to be a very poor hope by those who felt each sin to be a fatal
blot, and trembled at the self-indulgent way of life that might be a
more fatal injury than even the ban of the authorities.
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