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resolved the matter in the carriage.   I have great concerns about your safety which is distracting me from my work—and that I cannot tolerate above all else.”
    He was truly angry now.   This was not Sherlock’s usual verbal sparring and his unemotional assessment.   It was as if something suppressed had finally burst forth.   “You are here to assist with my work and not to distract me from it!   You must choose once and for all, Miss Hudson!”
    “Really, Holmes, I don’t think—” John protested.
    Oh, no!   I’ve gone too far!   As I always do.   Please, please let me go to Paris .  
    “Mr. Holmes is quite right, Dr. Watson.   I am sorry,” Mirabella stated softly.   “It isn’t that I don’t wish to go, I merely wish to be informed.”
    Sherlock threw the paper down on the stand next to his chair.   She didn’t think she had ever seen him so impassioned.  
    “You told me, Miss Hudson, that you wished to make the decisions about your future as opposed to having your family or myself make those decisions,” he continued.   “So be it.   If you consider yourself to be grown, then act it.   I assure you, Miss Hudson, that I cannot re-visit this subject every hour on the hour.   I must have the entirety of my energy focused on my work.   Do you or do you not wish to work for me, Miss Hudson?   If the answer is yes, then we shall not discuss this again and you shall be going to Paris, is that quite clear?”
    “Well, of c-c-course!   It just seems unusual that you should be taking me to Paris.   Two men and a woman that is.”   She searched for anything to say, glancing at Dr. John Watson, whose usual laughter and cordiality had been replaced by surprise.
    “Two men and their assistant, you mean,” Sherlock corrected, who seemed to be regaining his composure and returning to his usual mechanical state.
    “She’s quite right.   We cannot, Holmes,” Watson interjected.   “It would destroy Miss Mirabella’s reputation.”
    “I do not care a feather for such things,” stated Mirabella, raising her chin.   “I do not plan to ever marry.   I will be a scientist.”   She was indeed saving to attend the University of London.   For the first time in England, almost two years ago in eighteen hundred and eighty, four women were awarded Bachelor of Arts degrees.   And only last year two more women were given Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of London, precisely the degree she wished for.
    “There you have it, Watson.   Scientists are not in need of a reputation.”   Sherlock picked up The Globe as if the matter were now finalized.   “And I might add that all of Miss Belle’s activities will be in the context of detective work.   Surely there can be no objection to that, the highest of callings.”
    “Do not risk Miss Mirabella’s future, Holmes,” Watson commanded.   “She is young and may not yet have settled on what she wants.”
    Oh, I know what I want .   Mirabella’s eyes rested on Dr. Watson’s blonde-streaked hair, perfectly cut, falling into his concerned eyes in a most stylish manner.  
    “Miss Belle is a person of decided opinions.   I have every confidence that she knows precisely what she wants,” Sherlock murmured as if reading her mind, his eyes not moving from the paper, adding under his breath, “and will stop at nothing to get it.”
    “I will not bend on protecting Miss Mirabella,” John Watson insisted.
    “Very well then, we shall take Miss Hudson’s aunt as a chaperone.”   Sherlock glanced up from the paper, his manner now calm but resolved.   “Mrs. Hudson will go as far as Paris and from there will return home, as other arrangements have been made for a companion of sorts upon our arrival.”
    “What do you mean of sorts , Holmes?” pressed Watson.   “Miss Mirabella will either have a companion or she won’t.”
    “Miss Belle will have numerous companions, Watson, I guarantee it,” Sherlock replied.