ushing out; it even enlarges the bones until one is grown and
finished, as one may say. And the food you eat, the air you breathe, are
the supplies."

"But you go on eating and breathing. Why don't you go on growing?"

There was a curious little knot in her forehead where the lines crossed,
and she raised her eyes questioningly to him. What wonderful eyes they
were!

"I suppose it is partly this: You employ your mind and your body and
they need more nourishment. Then--well, I think it is the restraining
law of nature, else we should all be giants. In very hot countries and
very cold countries they do not grow so large."

He could not go into the intricacies of physiology, as he did with some
of the students.

"You did not go to school?"

"Oh, no!" She laughed softly. "The native schools were funny. They sat
on mats and did not have any books, but repeated after the teacher. And,
sometimes, he beat them dreadfully. There were some English people had a
school, but it was to teach the language to the natives. And then Mr.
Cathcart came to stay with father. He had been the chaplain somewhere
and wasn't well, so they gave him a--a----"

"Furlough?" suggested Chilian.

"Yes; father sent him out in one of the boats. He began to teach me some
things. I could read, you know. And I could talk Hindostani some--with
the children. Then I learned to spell and pronounce the words better. He
had a few books of verses that were beautiful. I learned some of them by
heart. And Latin."

"Latin!" in surprise.

"He had some books and a Testament. It was grand in the sound, and I
liked it. There were many things, cases and such, that I couldn't get
quite straight, but after a little I could read, and then make it over
into English."

When he was eight he was reading Latin and beginning French. Some of the
Boston women he knew were very good French scholars, though education
was not looked upon as a necessity for women. It seemed odd to him--this
little girl in Calcutta learning Latin.

"Let us see how far you have gone." Teaching never irked him when he
once set about it.

He hunted up a simple Latin primer.

"Come around this side;" and he drew her nearer to him. There had been
no little girls to train and teach, and for a moment he felt
embarrassed. But she took it as a matter of course, and he could see
she was all interest.

It had been, as he supposed, rather desultory teaching. But she took the
corrections and expla