A Little Rebel | Page 7

Miss Wynter, staring hard at the
professor. It is occurring to her that this grave sedate man with his
glasses could never have been younger. He must always have been
older than the gay, handsome, debonnaire father, who had been so dear
to her.
"What are you going to tell me about him?" asks the professor gently.
"Only what he used to call me--Doatie! I suppose," wistfully, "you
couldn't call me that?"
"I am afraid not," says the professor, coloring even deeper.
"I'm sorry," says she, her young mouth taking a sorrowful curve. "But
don't call me Miss Wynter, at all events, or 'my dear.' I do so want
someone to call me by my Christian name," says the poor child sadly.
"Perpetua--is it not?" says the professor, ever so kindly.

"No--'Pet,'" corrects she. "It's shorter, you know, and far easier to say."
"Oh!" says the professor. To him it seems very difficult to say. Is it
possible she is going to ask him to call her by that familiar--almost
affectionate--name? The girl must be mad.
"Yes--much easier," says Perpetua; "you will find that out, after a bit,
when you have got used to calling me by it. Are you going now, Mr.
Curzon? Going so soon?"
"I have classes," says the professor.
"Students?" says she. "You teach them? I wish I was a student. I
shouldn't have been given over to Aunt Jane then, or," with a rather
wilful laugh, "if I had been I should have led her, oh!" rapturously,
"such a life!"
It suggests itself to the professor that she is quite capable of doing that
now, though she is not of the sex male.
"Good-bye," says he, holding out his hand.
"You will come soon again?" demands she, laying her own in it.
"Next week--perhaps."
"Not till then? I shall be dead then," says she, with a rather mirthless
laugh this time. "Do you know that you and Aunt Jane are the only two
people in all London whom I know?"
"That is terrible," says he, quite sincerely.
"Yes. Isn't it?"
"But soon you will know people. Your aunt has acquaintances.
They--surely they will call; they will see you--they----"
"Will take an overwhelming fancy to me? just as you have done," says
she, with a quick, rather curious light in her eyes, and a tilting of her

pretty chin. "There! go," says she, "I have some work to do; and you
have your classes. It would never do for you to miss them. And as for
next week!--make it next month! I wouldn't for the world be a trouble
to you in any way."
"I shall come next week," says the professor, troubled in somewise by
the meaning in her eyes. What is it? Simple loneliness, or misery
downright? How young she looks--what a child! That tragic air does
not belong to her of right. She should be all laughter, and lightness, and
mirth----
"As you will," says she; her tone has grown almost haughty; there is a
sense of remorse in his breast as he goes down the stairs. Has he been
kind to old Wynter's child? Has he been true to his trust? There had
been an expression that might almost be termed despair in the young
face as he left her. Her face, with that expression on it, haunts him all
down the road.
Yes. He will call next week. What day is this? Friday. And Friday next
he is bound to deliver a lecture somewhere--he is not sure where, but
certainly somewhere. Well, Saturday then he might call. But that----
Why not call Thursday--or even Wednesday?
Wednesday let it be. He needn't call every week, but he had said
something about calling next week, and--she wouldn't care, of
course--but one should keep their word. What a strange little face she
has--and strange manners, and--not able to get on evidently with her
present surroundings.
What an old devil that aunt must be.
CHAPTER IV.
"Dear, if you knew what tears they shed, Who live apart from home
and friend, To pass my house, by pity led, Your steps would tend."
He makes the acquaintance of the latter very shortly. But requires no

spoon to sup with her, as Miss Majendie's invitations to supper, or
indeed to luncheon, breakfast or dinner, are so few and rare that it
might be rash for a hungry man to count on them.
The professor, who has felt it to be his duty to call on his ward
regularly every week, has learned to know and (I regret to say) to
loathe that estimable spinster christened Jane Majendie.
After every visit to her house he has sworn to himself that "this one"
shall be his last, and every Wednesday following he has gone again.
Indeed, to-day being Wednesday in the heart