her—she would not let you go anywhere with me."

"True," says Perpetua. Here she moves back, and folds her arms stiffly across her bosom, and pokes out her chin, in an aggressive fashion, that creates a likeness on the spot, in spite of the youthful eyes, and brow, and hair. "'Young _gentle_women in our time, Mr. Curzon, never went out walking, alone, with A Man!'"

The mimicry is perfect. The professor, after a faint struggle with his dignity, joins in her naughty mirth, and both laugh together.

"'Our' time! she thinks you are a hundred and fifty!" says Miss Wynter.

"Well, so I am, in a way," returns the professor, somewhat sadly.

"No, you're not," says she. "I know better than that, I" patting his arm reassuringly, "can guess your age better than she can. I can see at once, that you are not a day older than poor, darling papa. In fact you may be younger. I am perfectly certain you are not more than fifty."

The professor says nothing. He is staring at her. He is beginning to feel a little forlorn. He has forgotten youth for many days, has youth in revenge forgotten him?

"That is taking off a clear hundred at once," says she lightly. "No small account." Here, as if noticing his silence, she looks quickly at him, and perhaps something in his face strikes her, because she goes on hurriedly. "Oh! and what is age after all? I wish I were old, and then I should be able to get away from Aunt Jane—without—without any trouble."

"I am afraid you are indeed very unhappy here," says the professor gravely.

"I hate the place," cries she with a frown. "I shan't be able to stay here. Oh! why didn't poor papa send me to live with you?"

Why indeed? That is exactly what the professor finds great difficulty in explaining to her. An "old man" of "fifty" might very easily give a home to a young girl, without comment from the world. But then if an "old man of fifty" wasn't an old man of fifty—— The professor checks his thoughts, they are growing too mixed.

"We should have been so happy," Perpetua is going on, her tone regretful. "We could have gone everywhere together, you and I. I should have taken you to the theatre, to balls, to concerts, to afternoons. You would have been so happy, and so should I. You would—wouldn't you?"

The professor nods his head. The awful vista she has opened up to him has completely deprived him of speech.

"Ah! yes," sighs she, taking that deceitful nod in perfect good faith. "And you would have been good to me too, and let me look in at the shop windows. I should have taken such care of you, and made your tea for you, just" sadly, "as I used to do for poor papa, and——"

It is becoming too much for the professor.

"It is late. I must go," says he.

It is a week later when he meets her again. The season is now at its height, and some stray wave of life casting the professor into a fashionable thoroughfare, he there finds her.

Marching along, as usual, with his head in the air, and his thoughts in the ages when dates were unknown, a soft, eager voice calling his name brings him back to the fact that he is walking up Bond Street.

In a carriage, exceedingly well appointed, and with her face wreathed in smiles, and one hand impulsively extended, sits Perpetua. Evidently the owner of the carriage is in the shop making purchases, whilst Perpetua sits without, awaiting her.

"Were you going to cut me?" cries she. "What luck to meet you here. I am having such a lovely day. Mrs. Constans has taken me out with her, and I am to dine with her, and go with her to a concert in the evening."

She has poured it all out, all her good news in a breath, as though sure of a sympathetic listener.

He is too good a listener. He is listening so hard, he is looking so intensely, that he forgets to speak, and Perpetua's sudden gaiety forsakes her. Is he angry? Does he think——?

"It's only a concert," says she, flushing and hesitating. "Do you think that one should not go to a concert when——"

"Yes?" questions the professor abstractedly, as she comes to a full stop. He has never seen her dressed like this before. She is all in black to be sure, but such black, and her air! She looks quite the little heiress, like a little queen indeed—radiant, lovely.

"Well—when one is in mourning," says she somewhat impatiently, the color once again dyeing her cheek. Quick tears have sprung to her eyes. They seem to hurt the professor.

"One cannot be in mourning always," says he slowly. His manner is still unfortunate.

"You evade the question," says she frowning. "But a concert isn't like a ball, is it?"

"I don't know," says the professor, who indeed has had little knowledge of either for years, and whose unlucky answer arises solely from inability to give her an honest reply.

"You hesitate," says she, "you disapprove then. But," defiantly, "I don't care—a concert is not like a ball."

"No—I suppose not."

"I can see what you are thinking," returns she, struggling with her mortification. "And it is very hard of you. Just because you don't care to go anywhere, you think I oughtn't to care either. That is what is so selfish about people who are old. You," wilfully, "are just as bad as Aunt Jane."

The professor looks at her. His face is perplexed—distressed—and something more, but she cannot read that.

"Well, not quite perhaps," says she, relenting slightly. "But nearly. And if you don't care you will grow like her. I hate people who lecture me, and besides, I don't see why a guardian should control one's whole life, and thought, and action. A guardian," resentfully, "isn't one's conscience!"

"No. No. Thank Heaven!" says the professor, shocked. Perpetua stares at him a moment and then breaks into a queer little laugh.

"You evidently have no desire to be mixed up with my conscience," says she, a little angry in spite of her mirth. "Well, I don't want you to have anything to do with it. That's my affair. But, about this concert,"—she leans towards him, resting her hand on the edge of the carriage. "Do you think one should go nowhere when wearing black?"

"I think one should do just as one feels," says the professor nervously.

"I wonder if one should say just what one feels," says she. She draws back haughtily, then wrath gets the better of dignity, and she breaks out again. "What a horrid answer! You are unfeeling if you like!"

"I am?"

"Yes, yes! You would deny me this small gratification, you would lock me up for ever with Aunt Jane, you would debar me from everything! Oh!" her lips trembling, "how I wish—I _wish—_guardians had never been invented."

The professor almost begins to wish the same. Almost—perhaps not quite! That accusation about wishing to keep her locked up for ever with Miss Majendie is so manifestly unjust that he takes it hardly. Has he not spent all this past week striving to open a way of escape for her from the home she so detests! But, after all, how could she know that?

"You have misunderstood me," says he calmly, gravely. "Far from wishing you to deny yourself this concert, I am glad—glad from my heart—that you are going to it—that some small pleasure has fallen into your life. Your