Title:  A Little Rebel

Author:  Mrs. Hungerford

Release Date:  July 2, 2005 [EBook #16186]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of this project gutenberg EBOOK A little Rebel ***

Produced by Daniel Fromont daniel.fromont@cnc.fr
April 2005
2005 is the 150th anniversary of Mrs. Hungerford’s birthday.

Mrs. Hungerford (Margaret Wolfe Hamilton) (1855?-1897),

A little Rebel (1890) Lovell edition

A LITTLE REBEL

A NOVEL

BY

THE DUCHESS

Author of “Her Last Throw,” “April’s Lady,” “Faith and Unfaith,” etc. etc.

Montreal: 

John Lovell & son,

23 St. Nicholas street.

Entered according to Act of Parliament in the year 1891, by John
Lovell & Son, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture and
Statistics at Ottawa.

A LITTLE REBEL.

CHAPTER I.

“Perplex’d in the extreme.”

“The memory of past favors is like a rainbow, bright, vivid and beautiful.”

The professor, sitting before his untasted breakfast, is looking the very picture of dismay.  Two letters lie before him; one is in his hand, the other is on the table-cloth.  Both 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.  It is from the old friend himself, written a week before his death, and very urgent and very pleading.  The professor has mastered its contents with ever-increasing consternation.

Indeed so great a revolution has it created in his mind, that his face—­(the index of that excellent part of him)—­has, for the moment, undergone a complete change.  Any ordinary acquaintance now entering 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 way he has of looking at you, as if he doesn’t see you, that harasses the simple, and enrages the others—­is all gone!  Not a trace of it remains.  It has given place to terror, open and unrestrained.

“A girl!” murmurs he in a feeble tone, falling back in his chair.  And then again, in a louder tone of dismay—­“A girl!" He pauses again, and now again gives way to the fear that is destroying him—­“A grown girl!”

After this, he seems too overcome to continue his reflections, so goes back to the fatal letter.  Every now and then a groan escapes him, mingled with mournful remarks, and extracts from the sheet in his hand—­