"Poor old Wynter! Gone at last!" staring at the shaking signature at the end of the letter that speaks so plainly of the coming icy clutch that should prevent the poor hand from forming ever again even such sadly erratic characters as these. "At least," glancing at the half-read letter on the cloth--"_this_ tells me so. His solicitor's, I suppose. Though what Wynter could want with a solicitor----Poor old fellow! He was often very good to me in the old days. I don't believe I should have done even as much as I _have_ done, without him.... It must be fully ten years since he threw up his work here and went to Australia! ... ten years. The girl must have been born before he went,"--glances at letter--"'My child, my beloved Perpetua, the one thing on earth I love, will be left entirely alone. Her mother died nine years ago. She is only seventeen, and the world lies before her, and never a soul in it to care how it goes with her. I entrust her to you--(a groan). To you I give her. Knowing that if you are living, dear fellow, you will not desert me in my great need, but will do what you can for my little one.'" "But what is that?" demands the professor, distractedly. He pushes his spectacles up to the top of his head, and then drags them down again, and casts them wildly into the sugar-bowl. "What on earth am I to do with a girl of seventeen? If it had been a boy! even _that_ would have been bad enough--but a girl! And, of course--I know Wynter--he has died without a penny. He was bound to do that, as he always lived without one. _Poor_ old Wynter!"--as if a little ashamed of himself. "I don't see how I can afford to put her out to nurse." He pulls himself up with a start. "To nurse! a girl of seventeen! She'll want to be going out to balls and things--at her age." As if smitten to the earth by this last awful idea, he picks his glasses out of the sugar and goes back to the letter. "You will find her the dearest girl. Most loving, and tender-hearted; and full of life and spirits."