I shall not permit my niece, with my permission, to walk with you or any other man whilst under my protection." "I daresay you are right--no doubt--no doubt," mumbles the professor, incoherently, now thoroughly frightened and demoralized.

Good heavens! What an awful old woman! And to think that this poor child is under her care.

He happens at this moment to look at the poor child, and the scorn _for him_ that gleams in her large eyes perfects his rout.

To say that she was _right_! "If Perpetua wishes to go for a walk," says Miss Majendie, breaking through a mist of angry feeling that is only half on the surface, "I am here to accompany her." "I don't want to go for a walk--with you," says Perpetua, rudely it must be confessed, though her tone is low and studiously reserved.

"I don't want to go for a walk _at all_." She pauses, and her voice chokes a little, and then suddenly she breaks into a small passion of vehemence.
"I want to go somewhere, to _see_ something," she cries, gazing imploringly at Curzon.
"To _see_ something!" says her aunt, "why it was only last Sunday I took you to Westminster Abbey, where you saw the grandest edifice in all the world." "Most interesting place," says the professor, _sotto voce_, with a wild but mad hope of smoothing matters down for Perpetua's sake.
If it _was_ for Perpetua's sake, she proves herself singularly ungrateful.