For at that time it was almost as difficult to obtain the presence of Miss Bretherton at any social festivity as it was to obtain that of royalty.

Her Sundays were the objects of conspiracies for weeks beforehand on the part of those persons in London society who were least accustomed to have their invitations refused, and to have and to hold the famous beauty for more than an hour in his own rooms, and then to enjoy the privilege of spending five or six long hours on the river with her, were delights which, as the happy young man felt, would render him the object of envy to all at least of his fellow-dons below forty.
In streamed the party, filling up the book-lined rooms and startling the two old scouts in attendance into an unwonted rapidity of action.

Miss Bretherton wandered round, surveyed the familiar Oxford luncheon-table, groaning under the time-honoured summer fare, the books, the engravings, and the sunny, irregular quadrangle outside, with its rich adornings of green, and threw herself down at last on to the low window-seat with a sigh of satisfaction.
'How quiet you are! how peaceful! how delightful it must be to live here! It seems as if one were in another world from London.

Tell me what that building is over there; it's too new, it ought to be old and gray like the colleges we saw coming up here.

Is everybody gone away--"gone down" you say?
I should like to see all the learned people walking about for once.' 'I could show you a good many if there were time,' said young Sartoris, hardly knowing however what he was saying, so lost was he in admiration of that marvellous changing face.