"Only what he used to call me—Doatie! I suppose," wistfully, "you couldn't call me that?"
"I am afraid not," says the professor, coloring even deeper.
"I'm sorry," says she, her young mouth taking a sorrowful curve. "But don't call me Miss Wynter, at all events, or 'my dear.' I do so want someone to call me by my Christian name," says the poor child sadly.
"Perpetua—is it not?" says the professor, ever so kindly.
"No—'Pet,'" corrects she. "It's shorter, you know, and far easier to say."
"Oh!" says the professor. To him it seems very difficult to say. Is it possible she is going to ask him to call her by that familiar—almost affectionate—name? The girl must be mad.
"Yes—much easier," says Perpetua; "you will find that out, after a bit, when you have got used to calling me by it. Are you going now, Mr. Curzon? Going so soon?"
"I have classes," says the professor.
"Students?" says she. "You teach them? I wish I was a student. I shouldn't have been given over to Aunt Jane then, or," with a rather wilful laugh, "if I had been I should have led her, oh!" rapturously, "such a life!"
It suggests itself to the professor that she is quite capable of doing that now, though she is not of the sex male.