"No--Mrs. Mulcahy!" roars the professor frantically. "Where's your head, man? Mrs. Mulcahy came into the room, and took Miss Wynter into her charge in the--er--the most wonderful way, and carried her off to bed." The professor mops his brow. "Oh, well, _that's_ all right," says Hardinge. "Sit down, old chap, and let's talk it over." "It is _not_ all right," says the professor. "It is all wrong. Here she is, and here she apparently means to stay. The poor child doesn't understand. She thinks I'm older than Methusaleh, and that she can live here with me. I can't explain it to her--you--don't think _you_ could, do you, Hardinge?" "No, I don't, indeed," says Hardinge, in a hurry. "What on earth has brought her here at all?" "To _stay_. Haven't I told you? To stay for ever. She says"--with a groan--"she is going to settle me! To--to _brush my hair_! To--make my tea. She says I'm her guardian, and insists on living with me. She doesn't understand! Hardinge," desperately, "what _am_ I to do?" "Marry her!" suggests Hardinge, who I regret to say is choking with laughter. "That is a _jest_!" says the professor haughtily. This unusual tone from the professor strikes surprise to the soul of Hardinge. He looks at him. But the professor's new humor is short-lived. He sinks upon a chair in a tired sort of a way, letting his arms fall over the sides of it. As a type of utter despair he is a distinguished specimen. "Why don't you take her home again, back to the old aunt?" says Hardinge, moved by his misery. "I can't. She tells me it would be useless, that the house is locked up, and--and besides, Hardinge, her aunt--after _this_, you know--would be----" "Naturally," says Hardinge, after which he falls back upon his cigar. "Light your pipe," says he, "and we'll think it over." The professor lights it, and both men draw nearer to each other. "I'm afraid she won't go back to her aunt any way," says the professor, as a beginning to the "thinking it over." He pushes his glasses up to his forehead, and finally discards them altogether, flinging them on the table near. "If she saw you now she might understand," says Hardinge--for, indeed, the professor without his glasses loses thirty per cent. of old Time. "She wouldn't," says the professor. "And never mind that. Come back to the question. I say she will never go back to her aunt." He looks anxiously at Hardinge. One can see that he would part with a good deal of honest coin of the realm, if his companion would only _not_ agree with him. "It looks like it," said Hardinge, who is rather enjoying himself. "By Jove! what a thing to happen to _you_, Curzon, of all men in the world. What are you going to do, eh?" "It isn't so much that," says the professor faintly. "It is what is _she_ going to do?" "_Next!_" supplements Hardinge. "Quite so! It would be a clever fellow who would answer that, straight off. I say, Curzon, what a pretty girl she is, though. Pretty isn't the word. Lovely, I----"