Altogether she makes a picture--this little girl, with her brilliant eyes, and mutinous mouth, and soft black clinging gown.
Dainty-sweet she looks, "Sweet as is the bramble-flower." "Yes," says the professor, in a hesitating way, as if by no means certain of the fact.

He is so vague about it, indeed, that "some one's" dark eyes take a mischievous gleam.
"Are you _sure ?"_ says she, and looks up at him suddenly, a little sideways perhaps, as if half frightened, and gives way to a naughty sort of little laugh.

It rings through the room, this laugh, and has the effect of frightening her _altogether_ this time.

She checks herself, and looks first down at the carpet with the big roses on it, where one little foot is wriggling in a rather nervous way, and then up again at the professor, as if to see if he is thinking bad things of her.

She sighs softly.
"Have you come to see me or Aunt Jane ?" asks she; "because Aunt Jane is out--_I'm glad to say"_--this last pianissimo.
"To see you," says the professor, absently.