A dismal state of lassitude follows, broken by the college-clock
striking three, and by very rambling reflections upon champagne,
Xenophon, "Captain Dick," Madge, and the old deacon who clinched his wig
in the church.
The next morning (ah, how vexatious that all our follies are followed by
a "next morning!") you wake with a parched mouth, and a torturing
thirst; the sun is shining broadly into your reeking chamber. Prayers
and recitations are long ago over; and you see through the door in the
outer room that hard-faced chum with his Lexicon and Livy open before
him, working out with all the earnestness of his iron purpose the steady
steps toward preferment and success.
You go with some story of sudden sickness to the tutor,--half fearful
that the bloodshot, swollen eyes will betray you. It is very mortifying
too to meet Dalton appearing so gay and lively after it all, while you
wear such an air of being "used up." You envy him thoroughly the
extraordinary capacity that he has.
Here and there creeps in, amid all the pride and shame of the new life,
a tender thought of the old home; but its joys are joys no longer: its
highest aspirations even have resolved themselves into fine mist,---
like rainbows that the sun drinks with his beams.
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