"Well, so I am, in a way," returns the professor, somewhat sadly. "No, you're not," says she. _"I_ know better than that, I" patting his arm reassuringly, "can guess your age better than she can. I can see _at once,_ that you are not a day older than poor, darling papa. In fact you may be younger. I am perfectly certain you are not more than fifty." The professor says nothing. He is staring at her. He is beginning to feel a little forlorn. He has forgotten youth for many days, has youth in revenge forgotten him? "That is taking off a clear hundred at once," says she lightly. "No small account." Here, as if noticing his silence, she looks quickly at him, and perhaps something in his face strikes her, because she goes on hurriedly. "Oh! and what is age after all? I wish _I_ were old, and then I should be able to get away from Aunt Jane--without--without any _trouble."_ "I am afraid you are indeed very unhappy here," says the professor gravely. "I _hate_ the place," cries she with a frown. "I shan't be able to stay here. Oh! _why_ didn't poor papa send me to live with you?" Why indeed? That is exactly what the professor finds great difficulty in explaining to her. An "old man" of "fifty" might very easily give a home to a young girl, without comment from the world. But then if an "old man of fifty" _wasn't_ an old man of fifty---- The professor checks his thoughts, they are growing too mixed. "We should have been _so_ happy," Perpetua is going on, her tone regretful. "We could have gone everywhere together, you and I. I should have taken you to the theatre, to balls, to concerts, to afternoons. You would have been _so_ happy, and so should I. You would--wouldn't you?" The professor nods his head. The awful vista she has opened up to him has completely deprived him of speech. "Ah! yes," sighs she, taking that deceitful nod in perfect good faith. "And you would have been good to me too, and let me look in at the shop windows. I should have taken such _care_ of you, and made your tea for you, just" sadly, "as I used to do for poor papa, and----" It is becoming too much for the professor. "It is late. I must go," says he. It is a week later when he meets her again. The season is now at its height, and some stray wave of life casting the professor into a fashionable thoroughfare, he there finds her. Marching along, as usual, with his head in the air, and his thoughts in the ages when dates were unknown, a soft, eager voice calling his name brings him back to the fact that he is walking up Bond Street. In a carriage, exceedingly well appointed, and with her face wreathed in smiles, and one hand impulsively extended, sits Perpetua. Evidently the owner of the carriage is in the shop making purchases, whilst Perpetua sits without, awaiting her.