CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRITISH CHURCH David had read hard all through Hilary term with Mr.Stansfield of the Inner Temple; he had passed examinations brilliantly; he had solved knotty problems in the legal line for _Fraser and Warren_, and as already related he had begun to go out into Society.

Indeed, starting from the Rossiters' Thursdays and Praed's studio suppers, he was being taken up by persons of influence who were pleased to find him witty, possessed of a charming voice, of quiet but unassailable manners.

Opinions differed as to his good looks.

Some women proclaimed him as adorable, rather Sphynx-like, you know, but quite fascinating with his well-marked eye-brows, his dark and curly lashes, the rich warm tints of his complexion, the unfathomable grey eyes and short upper lip with the down of adolescence upon it.

Other women without assigning any reason admitted he did not produce any effect on their sensibility--they disliked law students, they said, even if they were of a literary turn; they also disliked curates and shopwalkers and sidesmen ...