. Yes, of course, he must call.
It is the usual thing to call on one's ward. It will be a terrible
business no doubt. _All_ girls belong to the genus nuisance. And _this_
girl will be at the head of her class no doubt. "Lively, spirited," so
far went the parent. A regular hoyden may be read between those kind
parental lines.

The poor professor feels hot again with nervous agitation as he imagines
an interview between him and the wild, laughing, noisy, perhaps horsey
(they all ride in Australia) young woman to whom he is bound to make his
bow.

How soon must this unpleasant interview take place? Once more he looks
back to the solicitor's letter. Ah! On Jan. 3rd her father, poor old
Wynter, had died, and on the 26th of May, she is to be "on view" at
Bloomsbury! and it is now the 2nd of February. A respite! Perhaps, who
knows? She may never arrive at Bloomsbury at all! There are young men in
Australia, a hoyden, as far as the professor has read (and that is
saying a good deal), would just suit the man in the bush.

CHAPTER II.

"A maid so sweet that her mere sight made glad men sorrowing."

Nevertheless the man in the bush doesn't get her.

Time has run on a little bit since the professor suffered many agonies
on a certain raw February morning, and now it is the 30th of May, and a
glorious finish too to that sweet month.

Even into this dingy old room, where at a dingy old table the professor
sits buried in piles of notes, and with sheets of manuscript knee-deep
scattered around him, the warm glad sun is stealing; here and there, the
little rays are darting, lighting up a dusty corner here, a hidden heap
of books there. It is, as yet, early in the afternoon, and the riotous
beams, who are no respecter of persons, and who honor the righteous and
the ungodly alike, are playing merrily in this sombre chamber, given so
entirely up to science and its prosy ways, daring even now to dance
lightly on the professor's head, which has begun to grow a little bald.

"The golden sun, in splendor likest heav'n,"

is proving perhaps a little too much for the tired brain in the small
room. Either that, or the incessant noises in the street outside, which
have now been enriched by the strains of a broken-down street piano,
causes him to lay aside his pen and lean back in a weary attitude in his
chair.

What a day it is! How warm! An hour ago he had delivered a brilliant
lecture on the everlasting Mammoth (a fres