"My tutor? You?"

"If you really are Mr. Arnold Arbuthnot, the gentleman who has
corresponded with I.A. for the last two years on heraldry, and--and
other things, I am your tutor."

She had made the dreaded confession. The rest would be easy. She even
ventured to raise her eyes, and she perceived, with a sinking of the
heart, that her estimate of her pupil's age was tolerably correct. He
was a young man, apparently not more than five or six and twenty.

It now remained to be seen if he was vindictive.

As for the pupil, when he recovered a little from the blow of this
announcement, he saw before him a girl, quite young, dressed in a
simple gray or drab colored stuff, which I have reason to believe is
called Carmelite. The dress had a crimson kerchief arranged in folds
over the front, and a lace collar, and at first sight it made the
beholder feel that, considered merely as a setting of face and figure,
it was remarkably effective. Surely this is the true end and aim of
all feminine adornment, apart from the elementary object of keeping
one warm.

"I--I did not know," the young man said, after a pause, "I did not
know at all that I was corresponding with a lady."

Here she raised her eyes again, and he observed that the eyes were
very large and full of light--"eyes like the fishpools of
Heshbon"--dove's eyes.