uable opportunities may be lost, even
in a moment. "Will you help me to do justice to Miss Minerva?" he
cautiously began.

"Hush!" Carmina interposed. "Surely, I heard somebody calling to me?"

They paused, and listened. A voice hailed them from the outer side of
the garden. They started guiltily. It was the voice of Mrs. Gallilee.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Carmina! are you in the Square?"

"Leave it to me," Ovid whispered. "We will come to you directly," he
called back.

Mrs. Gallilee was waiting for them at the gate. Ovid spoke, the moment
they were within sight of each other. "You will have no more cause to
complain of me," he said cheerfully; "I am going away at the end of the
week."

Mrs. Gallilee's answer was addressed to Carmina instead of to her son.
"Thank you, my dear," she said, and pressed her niece's hand.

It was too dark to see more of faces than their shadowy outline. The
learned lady's tone was the perfection of amiability. She sent Ovid
across the road to knock at the house-door, and took Carmina's arm
confidentially. "You little goose!" she whispered, "how could you
suppose I was angry with you? I can't even regret your mistake, you have
written such a charming note."

Ovid was waiting for them in the hall. They went into the library. Mrs.
Gallilee enfolded her son in a fervent motherly embrace.

"This completes the enjoyment of a most delightful evening," she said.
"First a perfect lecture--and then the relief of overpowering anxiety
about my son. I suppose your professional studies, Ovid, have never
taken you as high as the Interspacial Regions? We were an immense
audience to-night, to hear the Professor on that subject, and I really
haven't recovered it yet. Fifty miles above us--only fifty miles--there
is an atmosphere of cold that would freeze the whole human family to
death in a second of time. Moist matter, in that terrific emptiness,
would explode, and become stone; and--listen to this, Carmina--the
explosion itself would be frozen, and produce no sound. Think of serious
people looking up in that dreadful direction, and talking of going to
Heaven. Oh, the insignificance of man, except--I am going to make a
joke, Ovid--except when he pleases his old mother by going away for the
benefit of his health! And where are you going? Has sensible Carmina
advised you? I agree with her beforehand, whatever she has said."

Ovid informed his mother of Benjulia's suggestion, and asked her what
sh