itself into the subsoil of real culture,
while that of the Kimballs was mostly displayed above ground with only
here and there a stray fibre that had sunk to any depth.

Leonora Kimball, who at this time was slightly over twenty-three years
of age, possessed a most winning and gracious manner--a face that might
have served as a better model for a madonna than many of those
apparently used by the old masters; a lithe and graceful figure and an
abundance of vivacity when doing the things that pleased her. She had so
captivated John Earl from their first meeting that he had never tried
nor cared to analyze her. Indeed, had he so wished, he would have found
it a difficult undertaking, for he was too content with the pleasure he
felt in her presence to care to question it.

Dr. Earl had taken infinite pains to search the world for the sources of
disease and its prevention and cure. He had delved deeply into the
mysteries of mental and spiritual therapeutics, and had closely studied
the influences surrounding the origin of individual human beings. But
while he had harnessed many more or less occult forces into scientific
service in treating invalids, strangely enough, it never occurred to him
that similar elements might have an important mission in determining the
natural affinity of those attracted by the tenderest passion in the
world, and might do much, if properly regarded, to render stable that
one-time sacred bond of the sexes known as the marriage relation, which
at this time, everywhere, was resting upon such shifting quicksands of
mismating as to menace its existence.

"Love is of man's life a thing apart," applied with full force to Dr.
Earl, and he accepted his relations with Leonora Kimball with the same
confidence and light heart that might characterize the least thoughtful
man on Manhattan Island. While he had traveled many thousands of miles
and burned many a midnight lamp to ascertain if improvement could not be
made in the prevailing orthodox method of treating disease, he blindly
accepted, as millions of strong men before him had done, the prevailing
orthodox method of selecting a wife.

In any event, after the brother and sister had been left at the Ramsey
mansion on upper Fifth Avenue, he and Leonora proceeded to spend the
time from eleven to three o'clock very much as other lovers similarly
situated would have consumed those four hours. They motored until one
o'clock, when they went to her house, not