The
girlhood has ripened into the stately strong womanhood. Many suitors
have come and gone, among them some noble gentlemen who have received
their answers from her with sore hearts, but Helen still has not seen
her ideal of the romantic days and her heart is yet--she says to
herself--free--at least she has refused both wealth and high character
for the vision she has cherished all these years of the nameless one
who, so far, she says, has never appeared to her. And all through this
testing, refining process of growth, she has developed into a spirit of
rare strength and grace, of whom Paul and Esther have been increasingly
proud.

Two young men come briskly up the walk. Mrs. Douglas opens the door and
rushes out on the porch as Helen rises to tell her they are coming.

Walter laughingly lifts Esther off her feet as he kisses her and then
turns to Helen. Evidently he has not broken his heart over that romance
in the desert.

First greetings over he announced Bauer just as Paul steps into the
front room.

"Professor Felix Bauer, F. R. G. S., F. S. S. K. L. G. X. Y. Z. and
others. Isn't he great?"

Esther simply says, "Felix, welcome. I do not know how to say
'professor.'"

Bauer lifts her hands to his lips. Helen looks at him as if she were
seeing some new vision at a distance. Felix Bauer smiles in the old way
and says:

"Mrs. Douglas, I don't care for these titles. I would gladly give a
bushel of them for one kind word from Walter's mother."

He looks at Helen as he speaks and Helen notes his clear, strong accent
and the self-control and ease of a man who has met the world and looked
it in the face without fear and without shame.

It is only when they are seated at the table that Helen has opportunity
to note Bauer's strong face and figure, and wonder at the transformation
time and testing have made in him. He still speaks in the slow
deliberate fashion of the other days, but he is a full grown man now,
conscious of power and Helen has to readjust her picture of him as she
last saw him.

As the talk goes on, Paul's probing questions, aided by Walter and his
mother, bring out the facts about Bauer which his own modesty would keep
in the background.

Sent to Berlin to make special studies of new methods in lighting, he
had made the startling discovery of the formula of the fire fly's
secret, and revolutionised the entire system of city lighting. He had
been careless of wealth. Walter drops a hint of tho