The continuity, the complexity of human experience; the unremitting effort of the race; the stream of purpose running through it all; these were the kind of thoughts which, in more or less inchoate and fragmentary shape, pervaded the boy's sensitive mind as he rambled with his mother from college to college.
Mrs.Elsmere, too, was fascinated by Oxford.

But for all her eager interest, the historic beauty of the place aroused in her an under-mood of melancholy, just as it did in Robert.

Both had the impressionable Celtic temperament, and both felt that a critical moment was upon them, and that the Oxford air was charged with fate for each of them.

For the first time in their lives they were to be parted.

The mother's long guardianship was coming to an end.