In the distance, however, beyond this happy holiday-time, there loomed a dark shadow: the time was drawing on when I should have to go to college. Now certain traditions which I had heard at Miss Porquet’s school represented the college as a sort of anticipation of the lower regions; where, from morning to night, the small and weak suffered from the tyranny of the strong. Amongst the Porquets (for so the pupils of Miss Porquet were called) those who were of an adventurous and daring spirit, looked forward calmly, if not eagerly, to their college life—at least so some of them said—and to prepare themselves for it, wore their caps all on one side, and already talked the particular college slang. Others less courageous, waited the fatal moment of their removal from Miss Porquet’s care to the dangers of college life with fear and trembling. I was of that number. Some of the timid young Porquets having left the school, and actually, as it were, standing on the threshold of ............