ply.

"Perpetua--Miss Wynter! Exactly so! It sounds like--Dorothea--Lady
Highflown! Well, _your_ Lady Highflown doesn't seem to have many friends
here. What a pity you can't send her back to Australia!"

The professor is silent.

"It would suit all sides. I daresay the poor girl is pining for the
freedom of her old home. And, I must say, it is hard lines for you. A
girl with a temper, to be----"

"I did not say she had a temper."

Hardinge has risen to get himself some whisky and soda, but pauses to
pat the professor affectionately on the back.

"Of _course_ not! Don't I know you? You would die first! She might worry
your life out, and still you would rise up to defend her at every
corner. You should get her a satisfactory home as soon as you can--it
would ease your mind; and, after all, as she knows no one here, she is
bound to behave herself until you can come to her help."

"She would behave herself, as you call it," says the professor angrily,
"any and everywhere. She is a lady. She has been well brought up. I am
her guardian, she will do nothing without _my_ permission!"

_"Won't she!"_

A sound, outside the door strikes on the ears of both men at this
moment. It is a most peculiar sound, as it were the rattle of beads
against wood.

"What's that?" said Hardinge. "Everett" (the man in the rooms below,)
"is out, I know."

"It's coming here," says the professor.

It is, indeed! The door is opened in a tumultuous fashion, there is a
rustle of silken skirts, and there--there, where the gas-light falls
full on her from both room and landing--stands Perpetua!

The professor has risen to his feet. His face is deadly white. Mr.
Hardinge has risen too.

"Perpetua!" says the professor; it would be impossible to describe his
tone.

"I've come!" says Perpetua, advancing into the room. "I have done with
Aunt Jane, _for ever_," casting wide her pretty naked arms, "and I have
come to you!"

As if in confirmation of this decision, she flings from her on to a
distant chair the white opera cloak around her, and stands revealed as
charming a thing as ever eye fell upon. She is all in black, but black
that sparkles and trembles and shines with every movement. She seems,
indeed, to be hung in jet, and out of all this sombre gleaming her white
neck rises, pure and fresh and sweet as a little child's. Her long
slight arms are devoid of gloves--she had forgotten them, do doubt, but
her slender fingers are covered wit