"What! you are not angry or grieved? Nay, I could fancy you were
almost smiling."
"Yes, my child! Because, to tell you the plain truth, I knew all this
before."
"Knew it before!" cried Christian, in the utmost astonishment.
"I really did. Nobody told me. I found it out--found it out even before
I knew you. It was the strangest thing, and yet quite natural."
And then he explained to her that, after the disgraceful circumstance
occurred which caused Mr. Uniacke's rustication, he had fled, from
justice it might be, or, in any case, from the dread of it, leaving all his
papers open, and his rooms at the mercy of all comers. But, of course,
the master and dean of his college had taken immediate possession
there; and Dr. Grey, being known to the young man's widowed mother,
from whom he had received much kindness in his youth, was deputed
by her to overlook every thing, and investigate every thing, if by any
means his relatives might arrive at the real truth of that shameful story
which, now as heretofore, Dr. Grey passed over unexplained.
"It would serve no purpose to tell it," he said, "and it is all safely
ended now."
How far his own strong, clear common sense and just judgment had
succeeded in hushing it up, and saving the young man from a ruined
life, and his family from intolerable disgrace, Dr.
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