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But in that College Yard were anxious and expectant as well as buoyant faces. And there in that line, waiting to be called when their turn came, stood Jabez between Simon Clegg and Bess, with Matthew and the nurse on either hand. And ever and anon their eyes went up to the oriel window which faced the main entrance, for in the room it lighted the arbiters of the boy’s destiny sat in judgment on some other orphan’s claim. At length the summons came for “Jabez Clegg.”

With palpitating hearts—for any body of men with irresponsible powers is an awful tribunal—they passed under the arched portal at the western angle of the building, following their guide past the doors of the great kitchen on the right hand, and Dr. Dee’s room and the boys’ refectory on the left, up the wide stone staircase, with its massive carved oak balusters, along the gallery, at once library and museum, where gaping holiday-folk followed a Blue-coat cicerone past shelves and glass cases, and compartments separated for readers’ quiet study by carven book-shelf screens, hearing but heeding little of the parrot-roll the boys checked off: “Here’s Oliver Crummle’s sword; theer’s a loadstone; theer’s a hairy mon; theer’s the skeleton of a mon;” and so forth, but following their own guide to the nail-studded oaken door of the feoffees’ room—that door which might open to hope, only to close on disappointment.