It came on him suddenly that this child, whom he loved, was shut out from many of his dearest thoughts.
"Oxford is a city," he answered; and added, "the most beautiful city in the world." "Shall I ever go there ?" Taffy asked.
Mr.Raymond walked off without seeming to hear the question.
But that evening after supper he told the most wonderful tales of Oxford, while Taffy listened and hoped his mother would forget his bedtime; and Humility listened too, bending over her _guipure_.
The love with which he looked back to Oxford was the second passion of Samuel Raymond's life; and Humility was proud of it, not jealous at all.

He forgot all the struggle, all the slights, all the grip of poverty.

To him those years had become an heroic age, and men Homeric men.

And so he made them appear to Taffy, to whom it was wonderful that his father should have moved among such giants.
"And shall I go there too ?" Humility glanced up quickly, and met her husband's eyes.
"Some day, please God!" she said.

Mr.Raymond stared at the embers of wreck-wood on the hearth.
From that night Oxford became the main scene of Taffy's imaginings; a wholly fictitious Oxford, pieced together of odds and ends from picture-books, and peopled with all the old heroes.