An interval of two or three hours dispersed the rain-clouds and bestowed such grace of sunshine as Kingsmill might at this season temperately desire; then, whilst the marble figure was getting dried,--with soot-stains which already foretold its negritude of a year hence,--again streamed towards the College a varied multitude, official, parental, pupillary.

The students had nothing distinctive in their garb, but here and there flitted the cap and gown of Professor or lecturer, signal for doffing of beavers along the line of its progress.
Among the more deliberate of the throng was a slender, upright, ruddy-cheeked gentleman of middle age, accompanied by his wife and a daughter of sixteen.

On alighting from a carriage, they first of all directed their steps towards the statue, conversing together with pleasant animation.

The father (Martin Warricombe, Esq.

of Thornhaw, a small estate some five miles from Kingsmill,) had a countenance suggestive of engaging qualities--genial humour, mildness, a turn for meditation, perhaps for study.