e seems hesitating as if not knowing whether she
shall smile or sigh. She has raised both her hands as if unconsciously,
and is holding them clasped against her breast. The pretty fingers are
covered with costly rings. Altogether she makes a picture--this little
girl, with her brilliant eyes, and mutinous mouth, and soft black
clinging gown. Dainty-sweet she looks,

"Sweet as is the bramble-flower."

"Yes," says the professor, in a hesitating way, as if by no means
certain of the fact. He is so vague about it, indeed, that "some one's"
dark eyes take a mischievous gleam.

"Are you _sure_?" says she, and looks up at him suddenly, a little
sideways perhaps, as if half frightened, and gives way to a naughty sort
of little laugh. It rings through the room, this laugh, and has the
effect of frightening her _altogether_ this time. She checks herself,
and looks first down at the carpet with the big roses on it, where one
little foot is wriggling in a rather nervous way, and then up again at
the professor, as if to see if he is thinking bad things of her. She
sighs softly.

"Have you come to see me or Aunt Jane?" asks she; "because Aunt Jane is
out--_I'm glad to say_"--this last pianissimo.

"To see you," says the professor absently. He is thinking! He has taken
her hand, and held it, and dropped it again, all in a state of high
bewilderment.

Is _this_ the big, strong, noisy girl of his imaginings? The bouncing
creature with untidy hair, and her clothes pitchforked on to her?

"Well--I hoped so," says she, a little wistfully as it seems to him,
every trace of late sauciness now gone, and with it the sudden shyness.
After many days the professor grows accustomed to these sudden
transitions that are so puzzling yet so enchanting, these rapid,
inconsequent, but always lovely changes

"From grave to gay, from lively to severe."

"Won't you sit down?" says his small hostess gently, touching a chair
near her with her slim fingers.

"Thank you," says the professor, and then stops short.

"You are----"

"Your ward," says she, ever so gently still, yet emphatically. It is
plain that she is now on her very _best_ behavior. She smiles up at him
in a very encouraging way. "And you are my guardian, aren't you?"

"Yes," says the professor, without enthusiasm. He has seated himself,
not on the chair she has pointed out to him, but on a very distant
lounge. He is conscious of a feeling of growing terror. This lovely
c