"Sh!" says she again, shaking her head ominously, and putting her forefinger against her lip.  “Come in here,” says she softly, under her breath.

“Here,” when he does come in, is a most untidy place, made up of all things heterogeneous.  Now that he is nearer to her, he can see that she has been crying vehemently, and that the tears still stand thick within her eyes.

“I felt I must see you,” says she, “to tell you—­to ask you.  To—­Oh! you heard what she said!  Do—­do you think——?”

“Not at all, not at all,” declares the professor hurriedly.  “Don’t—­don’t cry, Perpetua!  Look here,” laying his hand nervously upon her shoulder and giving her a little angry shake. "Don’t cry!  Good heavens!  Why should you mind that awful old woman?”

Nevertheless, he had minded that awful old woman himself very considerably.

“But—­it is soon, isn’t it?” says she.  “I know that myself, and yet—­” wistfully—­“I can’t help it.  I do want to see things, and to amuse myself.”

“Naturally,” says the professor.

“And it isn’t that I forget him,” says she in an eager, intense tone, “I never forget him—­never—­never.  Only I do want to laugh sometimes and to be happy, and to see Mr. Irving as Charles I.”

The climax is irresistible.  The professor is unable to suppress a smile.

“I’m afraid, from what I have heard, that won’t make you laugh,” says he.

“It will make me cry then.  It is all the same,” declares she, impartially.  “I shall be enjoying myself, I shall be seeing things.  You—­” doubtfully, and mindful of his last speech—­“Haven’t you seen him?”

“Not for a long time, I regret to say.  I—­I’m always so busy,” says the professor apologetically.

"Always studying?” questions she.

“For the most part,” returns the professor, an odd sensation growing within him that he is feeling ashamed of himself.

“‘All work and no play,’” begins Perpetua, and stops, and shakes her charming head at him. "You will be a dull boy if you don’t take care,” says she.

A ghost of a little smile warms her sad lips as she says this, and lights up her shining eyes like a ray of sunlight.  Then it fades, and she grows sorrowful again.

“Well, I can’t study,” says she.

“Why not?” demands the professor quickly.  Here he is on his own ground; and here he has a pupil to his hand—­a strange, an enigmatical, but a lovely one.  “Believe me knowledge is the one good thing that life contains worth having.  Pleasures, riches, rank, all sink to insignificance beside it.”

“How do you know?” says she.  “You haven’t tried the others.”

“I know it, for all that.  I feel it.  Get knowledge—­such knowledge as the short span of life allotted to us will allow you to get.  I can lend you some books, easy ones at first, and——­”