There had been daughters, too, in the old days. . . .
But they had married, and the Vicarage nest was empty long since.
The Senior Tutor, too, had given up work and retired upon his
Fellowship. But every summer found him back at his old haunts; and
still every summer brought a reading-party to the Cove, in conduct
now of a brisk Junior Fellow, who had read with me in our time and
achieved a "first." In short, things at the Cove were pretty much
the same after twenty years, barring that a small colony of painters
had descended upon it and made it their home. With them the
undergraduates had naturally and quickly made friends, and the result
was a cricket match--a grand Two-days' Cricket Match. They were all
extremely serious about it, and the Oxford party--at their wits' end,
no doubt, to make up a team against the Artists--had bethought
themselves of me, who dwelt at the other end of the Duchy. They had
written--they had even sent a two-page telegram--to me, who had not
handled a bat for more years than I cared to count. It is delicious
to be flattered by youth, especially for gifts you never possessed or
possess no longer.
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