ced to Carmina. There were
two looking-glasses in the room. One, in the usual position, over the
fireplace; the other opposite, on the wall behind the sofa. Turning
back, before she left the room, Miss Minerva saw Mrs. Gallilee's face,
when she and Carmina looked at each other, reflected in the glass.

The girls were waiting for their dinner. Maria received the unpunctual
governess with her ready smile, and her appropriate speech. "Dear Miss
Minerva, we were really almost getting alarmed about you. Pardon me
for noticing it, you look--" She caught the eye of the governess, and
stopped confusedly.

"Well?" said Miss Minerva. "How do I look?"

Maria still hesitated. Zo spoke out as usual. "You look as if somebody
had frightened you."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

After two days of rain, the weather cleared again.

It was a calm, sunshiny Sunday morning. The flat country round
Benjulia's house wore its brightest aspect on that clear autumn day.
Even the doctor's gloomy domestic establishment reflected in some degree
the change for the better. When he rose that morning, Benjulia
presented himself to his household in a character which they were
little accustomed to see--the character of a good-humoured master. He
astonished his silent servant by attempting to whistle a tune. "If you
ever looked cheerful in your life," he said to the man, "look cheerful
now. I'm going to take a holiday!"

After working incessantly--never leaving his laboratory; eating at his
dreadful table; snatching an hour's rest occasionally on the floor--he
had completed a series of experiments, with results on which he could
absolutely rely. He had advanced by one step nearer towards solving
that occult problem in brain disease, which had thus far baffled the
investigations of medical men throughout the civilised world. If his
present rate of progress continued, the lapse of another month might
add his name to the names that remain immortal among physicians, in the
Annals of Discovery.

So completely had his labours absorbed his mind that he only remembered
the letters which Mrs. Gallilee had left with him, when he finished
his breakfast on Sunday morning. Upon examination, there appeared no
allusion in Ovid's correspondence to the mysterious case of illness
which he had attended at Montreal. The one method now left, by which
Benjulia could relieve the doubt that still troubled him, was to
communicate directly with his friend in Canada. He decided to