A Little Rebel

d in the

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h are open; but of one, the opening lines-that tell of the death of his old friend-are all he has read; whereas he has read the other from start to finish, already three times.

ering the professor's rooms (and those acquaintances might be whittled down to quite a little few), would hardly have known him. For the abstraction that, as a rule, characterizes his features-the

then again, in a louder tone of dismay-"A girl!" He pauses again, and

s back to the fatal letter. Every now and then, a groan escapes him,

want with a solicitor--Poor old fellow! He was often very good to me in the old days. I don't believe I should have done even as much as I have done, without him.... It must be fully ten years since he threw up his work here and went to Australia! ... ten years. The girl must have been born before he went,"-glances at letter-"'My child, my beloved Perpetua, the one th

rl of seventeen? If it had been a boy! even that would have been bad enough-but a girl! And, of course-I know Wynter-he has died without a penny. He was bound to do that, as he always lived without one. Poor old Wynter!

awful idea, he picks his glasses out o

rl. Most loving, and tender-heart

-somewhere-and ... But-er--It won't be respectable, I think. I-I've heard things said about-er-things like that. It's no good in looking an old fogey, if you aren't one; it's no earthly use"-standing before a glass and ruefully examining his countenance-"in looking fifty if you are only thirty-four. It will be a scandal," says the pro

s father had been caused by the young man's refusal to accept a Government appointment-obtained with some difficulty-for the very insufficient and, as it seemed to his father, iniquitous reason, that he had made up his mind to devote his life to science. Wynter, too, was a scientist of no mean order, and would, probably, have made

ow, uncomfortable room, one of the many that lie off the Strand, finds

the second page, he starts, re-reads a sentence or two, and suddenly his face becomes illuminated. He throws up his head. He cackles a bit. He looks as if he wants t

lady. Evidently living somewhere in Bloomsbury. Miss Jane Majendie. Mother's sister evidently. Wynter's sisters would never have been old

se, in another nervous fashion of his. After all, it was only this minute he had been accusing old

guardian, it seems. Guardian of

of her body, the-er-pleasure of

nctly outside the line of want, a thing to be grateful for, as his family having in a measure abandoned him, he, on his part, had abandoned his family in a measure also (and with reservations), and it would have been impossible to him, of all men, to confess himself beaten, and return to them for assistance of any kind. He could never

fortune. What was the sum? He glances back to the sheet in his hand and verifies his thought. Yes-eighty thousand p

s, though he was as light-hearted as the best of them, and as handsome as a dissipated Apollo. They had all loved him, if

r, remembers how the joke had widened, and reached its height when, at forty years of age, old Wynter had flung up his classes, lea

they had only known. Wynter had made that mythic

gift to Miss Jane Majendie,

To pore over his books (that are overflowing every table and chair in the uncomfortable room) until his eggs are India-rubber, and his rashers gutta-percha, is not

that awful incubus-and ever-present ward-but he can be sure that the absent ward is so well-off with regard to this word's g

ee that the fortune is not squandered. But he is safe there. Maiden ladies never squande

will be a terrible business no doubt. All girls belong to the genus nuisance. And this girl will be at the head of her c

an interview between him and the wild, laughing, noisy, perhaps horsey (t

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 Blooms