call."
"If there is any thing that I want, Robert," said Verdant, "I will
ring."
"Bless you, sir," observed Mr. Filcher, "there ain't no bells never
in colleges! They'd be rung off their wires in no time. Mr. Bouncer,
sir, he uses a trumpet like they does on board ship. By the same
token, that's it, sir!" And Mr. Filcher vanished, just in time to
prevent little Mr. Bouncer from finishing a furious solo, from an
entirely new version of ~Robert le Diable~, which he was giving with
novel effects through the medium of a speaking-trumpet.
Verdant found his bed-room inconveniently small; so
[56 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
contracted, indeed, in its dimensions, that his toilette was not
completed without his elbows having first suffered severe abrasions.
His mechanical turnip showed him that he had no time to lose, and the
furious ringing of a bell, whose noise was echoed by the bells of
other colleges, made him dress with a rapidity quite unusual, and
hurry down stairs and across quad. to the chapel steps, up which a
throng of students were hastening. Nearly all betrayed symptoms of
Woman\'s Trials
WOMAN'S TRIALS;
OR, TALES AND SKETCHES FROM THE LIFE AROUND US.
BY T. S. ARTHUR.
PHILADELPHIA:
1851.
PREFACE.
THE title of this volume sufficiently indicates its purpose. The
stories of which it is composed have been mainly written with the
end of creating for woman, in the various life-trials through which
she has to pass, sympathy and true consideration, as well in her own
having been aroused from their sleep without having had any spare
time
for an elaborate toilette, and many, indeed, were
completing it, by thrusting themselves into surplices and gowns as
they hurried up the steps.
Mr. Fosbrooke was one of these; and when he saw Verdant close to him,
he benevolently recognized him, and said, "Let me put you up to a
wrinkle. When they ring you up sharp for chapel, don't you lose any
time about your absolutions, - washing, you know; but just jump into a
pair of bags and Wellingtons; clap a top-coat on you, and button it
up to the chin, and there you are, ready dressed in the twinkling of
a bed-post."
Before Mr. Verdant Green could at all comprehend why a person should
jump into two bags, instead of dressing himself in the normal manner,
they went through the ante-chapel, or "Court of the Gentiles," as Mr.
Fosbrooke termed it, and entered the choir of the chapel through a
screen elaborately decorated in the Jacobean style, with pillars and
arches, and festoons of fruit and flowers, and bells and
pomegranates. On either side of the door were two men, who quickly
glanced
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 57]
at each one who passed, and as quickly pricked a mark against his
