Sweet are the rebounds from jeopardy to joy!  And he has so much of joy!  Not only has he been able to shake from his shoulders that awful incubus—­and ever-present ward—­but he can be sure that the absent ward is so well-off with regard to this world’s goods, that he need never give her so much as a passing thought—­dragged, torn as that thought would be from his beloved studies.

The aunt, of course, will see about her fortune. He has only a perfunctory duty—­to see that the fortune is not squandered.  But he is safe there.  Maiden ladies never squander!  And the girl, being only seventeen, can’t possibly squander it herself for some time.

Perhaps he ought to call on her, however.  Yes, of course, he must call.  It is the usual thing to call on one’s ward.  It will be a terrible business no doubt. All girls belong to the genus nuisance.  And this girl will be at the head of her class no doubt.  “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.

CHAPTER II.

“A maid so sweet that her mere sight made glad men sorrowing.”

Nevertheless the man in the bush doesn’t get her.

Time has run on a little bit since the professor suffered many agonies on a certain raw February morning, and now it is the 30th of May, and a glorious finish too to that sweet month.

Even into this dingy old room, where at a dingy old table the professor sits buried in piles of notes, and with sheets of manuscript knee-deep scattered around him, the warm glad sun is stealing; here and there, the little rays are darting, lighting up a dusty corner here, a hidden heap of books there.  It is, as yet, early in the afternoon, and the riotous beams, who are no respecter of persons, and who honor the righteous and the ungodly alike, are playing merrily in this sombre chamber, given so entirely up to science and its prosy ways, daring even now to dance lightly on the professor’s head, which has begun to grow a little bald.

    “The golden sun, in splendor likest heav’n,”

is proving perhaps a little too much for the tired brain in the small room.  Either that, or the incessant noises in the street outside, which have now been enriched by the strains of a broken-down street piano, causes him to lay aside his pen and lean back in a weary attitude in his chair.