Now tell me,"-- she leans even more forward and looks intently at the professor, her pretty brows wrinkled as if with extreme and troublous thought--"What are the duties of a guardian ?" "Eh ?" says the professor.

He moves his glasses up to his forehead and then pulls them down again.

Did ever anxious student ask him question so difficult of answer as this one--that this small maiden has propounded?
"You can think it over," says she most graciously.

"There is no hurry, and I am quite aware that one isn't made a guardian _every_ day.

Do you think you could make it out whilst I count forty ?" "I think I could make it out more quickly if you didn't count at all," says the professor, who is growing warm.