l, what can the bravest man
do with an angry old woman, except to get away from her as quickly as
possible? And the professor, though brave enough in the usual ways, is
not brave where women are concerned.

"Guardian or no guardian, I will thank you to remember you are in _my_
house!" cries Miss Majendie, in a shrill tone that runs through the
professor's head.

"Certainly. Certainly," says he, confusedly, and then he slips out of
the room, and having felt the door close behind him, runs tumultuously
down the staircase. For years he has not gone down any staircase so
swiftly. A vague, if unacknowledged, feeling that he is literally making
his escape from a vital danger, is lending wings to his feet. Before him
lies the hall-door, and that way safety lies, safety from that old
gaunt, irate figure upstairs. He is not allowed to reach, however--just
yet.

A door on the right side of the hall is opened cautiously; a shapely
little head is as cautiously pushed through it, and two anxious red lips
whisper:--

"Mr. Curzon," first, and then, as he turns in answer to the whisper,
"Sh--_Sh_!"

CHAPTER V.

"My love is like the sea,
As changeful and as free;
Sometimes she's angry, sometimes rough,
Yet oft she's smooth and calm enough--
Ay, much too calm for me."

It is Perpetua. A sad-eyed, a tearful-eyed Perpetua, but a lovely
Perpetua for all that.

"Well?" says he.

"_Sh!_" says she again, shaking her head ominously, and putting her
forefinger against her lip. "Come in here," says she softly, under her
breath.

"Here," when he does come in, is a most untidy place, made up of all
things heterogeneous. Now that he is nearer to her, he can see that she
has been crying vehemently, and that the tears still stand thick within
her eyes.

"I felt I _must_ see you," says she, "to tell you--to ask you. To--Oh!
you _heard_ what she said! Do--do _you_ think----?"

"Not at all, not at all," declares the professor hurriedly.
"Don't--_don't_ cry, Perpetua! Look here," laying his hand nervously
upon her shoulder and giving her a little angry shake. "_Don't_ cry!
Good heavens! Why should you mind that awful old woman?"

Nevertheless, he had minded that awful old woman himself very
considerably.

"But--it _is_ soon, isn't it?" says she. "I know that myself, and yet--"
wistfully--"I can't help it. I _do_ want to see things, and to amuse
myself."

"Naturally," says the professor.

"And