Nobody sees any one as he is, let alone an elderly lady sitting opposite a strange young man in a railway carriage.  They see a whole—­they see all sorts of things—­they see themselves....  Mrs. Norman now read three pages of one of Mr. Norris’s novels.  Should she say to the young man (and after all he was just the same age as her own boy):  “If you want to smoke, don’t mind me”?  No:  he seemed absolutely indifferent to her presence... she did not wish to interrupt.

But since, even at her age, she noted his indifference, presumably he was in some way or other—­to her at least—­nice, handsome, interesting, distinguished, well built, like her own boy?  One must do the best one can with her report.  Anyhow, this was Jacob Flanders, aged nineteen.  It is no use trying to sum people up.  One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done—­for instance, when the train drew into the station, Mr. Flanders burst open the door, and put the lady’s dressing-case out for her, saying, or rather mumbling:  “Let me” very shyly; indeed he was rather clumsy about it.

“Who...” said the lady, meeting her son; but as there was a great crowd on the platform and Jacob had already gone, she did not finish her sentence.  As this was Cambridge, as she was staying there for the week-end, as she saw nothing but young men all day long, in streets and round tables, this sight of her fellow-traveller was completely lost in her mind, as the crooked pin dropped by a child into the wishing-well twirls in the water and disappears for ever.

They say the sky is the same everywhere.  Travellers, the shipwrecked, exiles, and the dying draw comfort from the thought, and no doubt if you are of a mystical tendency, consolation, and even explanation, shower down from the unbroken surface.  But above Cambridge—­anyhow above the roof of King’s College Chapel—­there is a difference.  Out at sea a great city will cast a brightness into the night.  Is it fanciful to suppose the sky, washed into the crevices of King’s College Chapel, lighter, thinner, more sparkling than the sky elsewhere?  Does Cambridge burn not only into the night, but into the day?

Look, as they pass into service, how airily the gowns blow out, as though nothing dense and corporeal were within.  What sculptured faces, what certainty, authority controlled by piety, although great boots march under the gowns.  In what orderly procession they advance.  Thick wax candles stand upright; young men rise in white gowns; while the subservient eagle bears up for inspection the great white book.

An inclined plane of light comes accurately through each window, purple and yellow even in its most diffused dust, while, where it breaks upon stone, that stone is softly chalked red, yellow, and purple.  Neither snow nor greenery, winter nor summer, has power over the old stained glass.  As the sides of a lantern protect the flame so that it burns steady even in the wildest night—­burns steady and gravely illumines the tree-trunks—­so inside the Chapel all was orderly.  Gravely sounded the voices; wisely the organ replied, as if buttressing human faith with the assent of the elements.  The white-robed figures crossed from side to side; now mounted steps, now descended, all very orderly.