Mrs. Mulcahy came generously to the rescue.

“Her best frock, sir, I suppose, an’ her Sunday bonnet.  I’ve often wished it before, Mr. Curzon, an’ I’m thinkin’ that ’twill be the makin’ of ye; an’ a handsome, purty little crathur she is an’ no mistake.  An’ who is to give away the poor dear, sir, askin’ yer pardon?”

“I am,” says the professor.

“Oh no, sir; the likes was never known.  ’Tis the father or one of his belongings as gives away the bride, niver the husband to be, an’ if ye have nobody, sir, you two, why I’m sure I’d be proud to act for ye in this matther.  Faix I don’t disguise from ye, Misther Curzon, dear, that I feels like a mother to that purty child this moment, an’ I tell ye this, that if ye don’t behave dacent to her, ye’ll have to answer to Mrs. Mulcahy for that same.”

“What d’ye mean, woman?” roars the professor, indignantly.  “Do you imagine that _—­_—?”

“No.  I’d belave nothin’ bad o’ ye,” says Mrs. Mulcahy solemnly.  “I’ve cared ye these six years, an’ niver a fault to find.  But that child beyant, whin ye take her away to make her yer wife——­”

“You must be mad,” says the professor, a strange, curious pang contracting his heart.  “I am not taking her away to——­ I—­I am taking her to my sister, who will receive her as a guest.”

“Mad!” repeats Mrs. Mulcahy furiously.  “Who’s mad?  Faix,” preparing to leave the room, “‘tis yerself was born widout a grain o’ sinse!”

The meeting between Lady Baring and Perpetua is eminently satisfactory.  The latter, looking lovely, but a little frightened, so takes Lady Baring’s artistic soul by storm, that that great lady then and there accepts the situation, and asks Perpetua if she will come to her for a week or so.  Perpetua, charmed in turn by Lady Baring’s grace and beauty and pretty ways, receives the invitation with pleasure, little dreaming that she is there “on view,” as it were, and that the invitation is to be prolonged indefinitely—­that is, till either she or her hostess tire one of the other.

The professor’s heart sinks a little as he sees his sister rise and loosen the laces round the girl’s pretty, slender throat, begging her to begin to feel at home at once.  Alas!  He has deliberately given up his ward! His ward!  Is she any longer his?  Has not the great world claimed her now, and presently will she not belong to it?  So lovely, so sweet she is, will not all men run to snatch the prize?—­a prize, bejewelled too, not only by Nature, but by that gross material charm that men call wealth.  Well, well, he has done his best for her.  There was, indeed, nothing else left to do.

CHAPTER X.

    “The sun is all about the world we see,
    The breath and strength of very Spring; and we
    Live, love, and feed on our own hearts.”