THE LOST STRADIVARIUS

MISS SOPHIA MALTRAVERS' STORY

CHAPTER I


Your father, John Maltravers, was born in 1820 at Worth, and succeeded
his father and mine, who died when we were still young children. John
was sent to Eton in due course, and in 1839, when he was nineteen years
of age, it was determined that he should go to Oxford. It was intended
at first to enter him at Christ Church; but Dr. Sarsdell, who visited us
at Worth in the summer of 1839, persuaded Mr. Thoresby, our guardian, to
send him instead to Magdalen Hall. Dr. Sarsdell was himself Principal of
that institution, and represented that John, who then exhibited some
symptoms of delicacy, would meet with more personal attention under his
care than he could hope to do in so large a college as Christ Church.
Mr. Thoresby, ever solicitous for his ward's welfare, readily waived
other considerations in favour of an arrangement which he considered
conducive to John's health, and he was accordingly matriculated at
Magdalen Hall in the autumn of 1839.

Dr. Sarsdell had not been unmindful of his promise to look after my
brother, and had secured him an excellent first-floor sitting-room, with
a bedroom adjoining, having an aspect towards New College Lane.

I shall pass over the first two years of my brother's residence at
Oxford, because they have nothing to do with the present story. They
were spent, no doubt, in the ordinary routine of work and recreation
common in Oxford at that period.