e
can I say? Oh, if he should be vindictive!"

When the clock began to strike the hour of eight, Iris lighted her
candles, and before the pulsation of the last stroke had died away,
she heard the ringing of the house-bell.

The door was opened by her grandfather himself, and she heard his
voice.

"Yes," he said, "you will find your tutor, in the first floor front,
alone. If you are inclined to be vindictive, when you hear all,
please ring the bell for me."

The visitor mounted the stairs, and Iris, hearing his step, began to
tremble and to shake for fear.

When the door opened she did not at first look up. But she knew that
her pupil was there, and that he was looking for his tutor.

"Pardon me"--the voice was not unpleasant--"pardon me. I was directed
to this room. I have an appointment with my tutor."

"If," said Iris, rising, for the time for confession had at length
arrived, "if you are Mr. Arnold Arbuthnot, your appointment is, I
believe, with me."

"It is with my tutor," he said.

"I am your tutor. My initials are I.A."

The room was only lighted by two candles, but they showed him the
hanging head and the form of a woman, and he thought she looked young,
judging by the outline. Her voice was sweet and clear.

"My tutor? You?"

"If you really are Mr. Arnold Arbuthnot, the gentleman who has
corresponded with I.A. for the last two years on heraldry, and--and
other things, I am your tutor."

She had made the dreaded confession. The rest would be easy. She even
ventured to raise her eyes, and she perceived, with a sinking of the
heart, that her estimate of her pupil's age was tolerably correct. He
was a young man, apparently not more than five or six and twenty.

It now remained to be seen if he was vindictive.

As for the pupil, when he recovered a little from the blow of this
announcement, he saw before him a girl, quite young, dressed in a
simple gray or drab colored stuff, which I have reason to believe is
called Carmelite. The dress had a crimson kerchief arranged in folds
over the front, and a lace collar, and at first sight it made the
beholder feel that, considered merely as a setting of face and figure,
it was remarkably effective. Surely this is the true end and aim of
all feminine adornment, apart from the elementary object of keeping
one warm.

"I--I did not know," the young man said, after a pause, "I did not
know at all that I was corresponding with a lady."

Here she raised her e