"Our landlady gave us directions--she made it quite plain to us. There is no necessity for you to trouble yourself any further. You were not going this way when we met you, but exactly in the opposite direction." "I am going this way now, at any rate," he said, with decision. "I am going to show your sisters their way through the gardens. There are a good many paths, and they don't all lead to Myrtle Street." "But we know the points of the compass--we have our general directions," she insisted angrily, as she followed him helplessly through the gates. "We are not quite idiots, though we do come from the country." "Patty," interposed Elizabeth, surprised, "I am glad of Mr. Brion's kind help, if you are not." "Patty," echoed Eleanor in an undertone, "that haughty spirit of yours will have a fall some day." Patty felt that it was having a fall now. "I know it is very kind of Mr. Brion," she said tremulously, "but how are we to get on and do for ourselves if we are treated like children--I mean if we allow ourselves to hang on to other people? We should make our own way, as others have to do. I don't suppose _you_ had anyone to lead you about when _you_ first came to Melbourne"--addressing Paul. "I was a man," he replied. "It is a man's business to take care of himself." "Of course. And equally it is a woman's business to take care of herself--if she has no man in her family." "Pardon me. In that case it is the business of all the men with whom she comes in contact to take care of her--each as he can." "Oh, what nonsense! You talk as if we lived in the time of the Troubadours--as if you didn't _know_ that all that stuff about women has had its day and been laughed out of existence long ago." "What stuff?" "That we are helpless imbeciles--a sort of angelic wax baby, good for nothing but to look pretty. As if we were not made of the same substance as you, with brains and hands--not so strong as yours, perhaps, but quite strong enough to rely upon when necessary. Oh!" exclaimed Patty, with a fierce gesture, "I do so _hate_ that man's cant about women--I have no patience with it!" "You must have been severely tried," murmured Paul (he was beginning to think the middle Miss King a disagreeable person, and to feel vindictive towards her). And Eleanor laughed cruelly, and said, "Oh, no, she's got it all out of books." "A great mistake to go by books," said he, with the air of a father. "Experience first--books afterwards, Miss Patty." And he smiled coolly into the girl's flaming face. CHAPTER VIII. AN INTRODUCTION TO MRS. GRUNDY.