"Lively, spirited," so far went the parent.

A regular hoyden may be read between those kind parental lines.
The poor professor feels hot again with nervous agitation as he imagines an interview between him and the wild, laughing, noisy, perhaps horsey (they all ride in Australia) young woman to whom he is bound to make his bow.
How soon must this unpleasant interview take place?
Once more he looks back to the solicitor's letter.

Ah! On Jan.

3rd her father, poor old Wynter, had died, and on the 26th of May, she is to be "on view" at Bloomsbury! and it is now the 2nd of February.

A respite! Perhaps, who knows?
She may never arrive at Bloomsbury at all! There are young men in Australia, a hoyden, as far as the professor has read (and that is saying a good deal), would just suit the man in the bush..