'The vacation is the time they show themselves; it's like owls coming out at night.

You see, Miss Bretherton, we don't keep many of them; they're in the way in term time.

But in vacation they have the colleges and the parks and the Bodleian to themselves, and you may study their ways, and their spectacles, and their umbrellas, under the most favourable conditions.' 'Oh yes,' said Miss Bretherton, with a little scorn, 'people always make fun of what they are proud of.

But I mean to believe that you are _all_ learned, and that everybody here works himself to death, and that Oxford is quite, quite perfect!' 'Did you hear what Miss Bretherton was saying, Mrs.Stuart ?' said Forbes, when they were seated at luncheon.

'Oxford is perfect, she declares already; I don't think I quite like it: it's too hot to last.' 'Am I such a changeable creature, then ?' said Miss Bretherton, smiling at him.