with a rather wilful laugh, "if I had been I should have led her, oh!" rapturously, "such a life!"

It suggests itself to the professor that she is quite capable of doing that now, though she is not of the sex male.

"Good-bye," says he, holding out his hand.

"You will come soon again?" demands she, laying her own in it.

"Next week—perhaps."

"Not till then? I shall be dead then," says she, with a rather mirthless laugh this time. "Do you know that you and Aunt Jane are the only two people in all London whom I know?"

"That is terrible," says he, quite sincerely.

"Yes. Isn't it?"

"But soon you will know people. Your aunt has acquaintances. They—surely they will call; they will see you—they——"

"Will take an overwhelming fancy to me? just as you have done," says she, with a quick, rather curious light in her eyes, and a tilting of her pretty chin. "There! go," says she, "I have some work to do; and you have your classes. It would never do for you to miss them. And as for next week!—make it next month! I wouldn't for the world be a trouble to you in any way."

"I shall come next week," says the professor, troubled in somewise by the meaning in her eyes. What is it? Simple loneliness, or misery downright? How young she looks—what a child! That tragic air does not belong to her of right. She should be all laughter, and lightness, and mirth——

"As you will," says she; her tone has grown almost haughty; there is a sense of remorse in his breast as he goes down the stairs. Has he been kind to old Wynter's child? Has he been true to his trust? There had been an expression that might almost be termed despair in the young face as he left her. Her face, with that expression on it, haunts him all down the road.

Yes. He will call next week. What day is this? Friday. And Friday next he is bound to deliver a lecture somewhere—he is not sure where, but certainly somewhere. Well, Saturday then he might call. But that——

Why not call Thursday—or even Wednesday?

Wednesday let it be. He needn't call every week, but he had said something about calling next week, and—she wouldn't care, of course—but one should keep their word. What a strange little face she has—and strange manners, and—not able to get on evidently with her present surroundings.

What an old devil that aunt must be.

CHAPTER IV.

He makes the acquaintance of the latter very shortly. But requires no spoon to sup with her, as Miss Majendie's invitations to supper, or indeed to luncheon, breakfast or dinner, are so few and rare that it might be rash for a hungry man to count on them.

The professor, who has felt it to be his duty to call on his ward regularly every week, has learned to know and (I regret to say) to loathe that estimable spinster christened Jane Majendie.

After every visit to her house he has sworn to himself that "this one" shall be his last, and every Wednesday following he has gone again. Indeed, to-day being Wednesday in the heart of June, he may be seen sitting bolt upright in a hansom on his way to the unlovely house that holds Miss Jane Majendie.

As he enters the dismal drawing-room, where he finds Miss Majendie and her niece, it becomes plain, even to his inexperienced brain, that there has just been a row on somewhere.

Perpetua is sitting on a distant lounge, her small vivacious face one thunder-cloud. Miss Majendie, sitting on the hardest chair this hideous room contains, is smiling. A terrible sign. The professor pales before it.

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Curzon," says Miss Majendie, rising and extending a bony hand. "As Perpetua's guardian, you may perhaps have some influence over her. I say 'perhaps' advisedly, as I scarcely dare to hope anyone could influence a mind so distorted as hers."

"What is it?" asks the professor nervously—of Perpetua, not of Miss Majendie.

"I'm dull," says Perpetua sullenly.

The professor glances keenly at the girl's downcast face, and then at Miss Majendie. The latter glance is a question.

"You hear her," says Miss Majendie coldly—she draws her shawl round her meagre shoulders, and a breath through her lean nostrils that may be heard. "Perhaps you may be able to discover her meaning."

"What is it?" asks the professor, turning to the girl, his tone anxious, uncertain. Young women with "wrongs" are unknown to him, as are all other sorts of young women for the matter of that. And this particular young woman looks a little unsafe at the present moment.

"I have told you! I am tired of this life. I am dull—stupid. I want to go out." Her lovely eyes are flashing, her face is white—her lips trembling. "Take me out," says she suddenly.

"Perpetua!" exclaims Miss Majendie. "How unmaidenly! How immodest!"

Perpetua looks at her with large, surprised eyes.

"Why?" says she.

"I really think," interrupts the professor hurriedly, who sees breakers ahead, "if I were to take Perpetua for a walk—a drive—to—er—to some place or other—it might destroy this ennui of which she complains. If you will allow her to come out with me for an hour or so, I——"

"If you are waiting for my sanction, Mr. Curzon, to that extraordinary proposal, you will wait some time," says Miss Majendie slowly, frigidly. She draws the shawl still closer, and sniffs again.

"But——"

"There is no 'But,' sir. The subject doesn't admit of argument. In my young days, and I should think"—scrutinizing him exhaustively through her glasses—"in yours, it was not customary for a young gentlewoman to go out walking, alone, with 'a man'!!" If she had said with a famished tiger, she couldn't have thrown more horror into her tone.

The professor had shrunk a little from that classing of her age with his, but has now found matter for hope in it.

"Still—my age—as you suggest—so far exceeds Perpetua's—I am indeed so much older than she is, that I might be allowed to escort her wherever it might please her to go."

"The real age of a man now-a-days, sir, is a thing impossible to know," says Miss Majendie. "You wear glasses—a capital disguise! I mean nothing offensive—so far—sir, but it behoves me to be careful, and behind those glasses, who can tell what demon lurks? Nay! No offence! An innocent man would feel no offence!"

"Really, Miss Majendie!" begins the poor professor, who is as red as though he were the guiltiest soul alive.

"Let me proceed, sir. We were talking of the ages of men."

"We?"

"Certainly! It was you who suggested the idea, that, being so much older than my niece, Miss Wynter, you could therefore escort her here and there—in fact everywhere—in fact"—with awful meaning—"any where!"

"I assure you, madam," begins the professor, springing to his feet—Perpetua puts out a white hand.

"Ah! let her talk," says she. "Then you will understand."

"But men's ages, sir, are a snare and a delusion!" continues Miss Majendie, who has mounted her hobby, and will ride it to the death. "Who can tell the age of any man in this degenerate age? We look at their faces, and say he must be so and so, and he a few years younger, but looks are vain, they tell us nothing. Some look old, because they are old, some look old—through vice!"

The professor makes an impatient gesture. But Miss Majendie is equal to most things.

"'Who excuses himself accuses himself,'" quotes she