Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org)) A LITTLE REBEL A NOVEL BY THE DUCHESS _Author of "Her Last Throw," "April's Lady," "Faith and Unfaith," etc., etc._ Montreal: JOHN LOVELL & SON, 23 St. Nicholas Street. Entered according to Act of Parliament in the year 1891, by John Lovell & Son, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture and Statistics at Ottawa. A LITTLE REBEL. CHAPTER I. "Perplex'd in the extreme." "The memory of past favors is like a rainbow, bright, vivid and beautiful." The professor, sitting before his untasted breakfast, is looking the very picture of dismay. Two letters lie before him; one is in his hand, the other is on the table-cloth. Both are open; but of one, the opening lines--that tell of the death of his old friend--are all he has read; whereas he has read the other from start to finish, already three times. It is from the old friend himself, written a week before his death, and very urgent and very pleading. The professor has mastered its contents with ever-increasing consternation. Indeed so great a revolution has it created in his mind, that his face--(the index of that excellent part of him)--has, for the moment, undergone a complete change. Any ordinary acquaintance now entering the professor's rooms (and those acquaintances might be whittled down to quite a _little_ few), would hardly have known him. For the abstraction that, as a rule, characterizes his features--the way he has of looking at you, as if he doesn't see you, that harasses the simple, and enrages the others--is all gone! Not a trace of it remains. It has given place to terror, open and unrestrained. "A girl!" murmurs he in a feeble tone, falling back in his chair. And then again, in a louder tone of dismay--"A _girl_!" He pauses again, and now again gives way to the fear that is destroying him--"A _grown_ girl!" After this, he seems too overcome to continue his reflections, so goes back to the fatal letter. Every now and then, a groan escapes him, mingled with mournful remarks, and extracts from the sheet in his hand--