or her mother was the only sister of a widower
whose sole interest and occupation in life was piling up dollars. He had
dollars in everything, from pork and lumber to canned goods, and her own
father's scientific inventions, and Brenda was the bright particular
star of his affections.

On the other hand, Lord Leighton, son and heir of the invalid Earl of
Kyneston, was a fairly well-to-do young nobleman, good-looking, a
scholar, and a good sportsman, who had done brilliantly at Cambridge,
and then devoted himself to Egyptian exploration with a whole-souled
ardour which had quickly won Professor Marmion's heart, and a ready
consent to his "trying his luck" with his daughter to boot. This had not
a little to do with the present unfortunate condition of her own love
affairs.

She had already refused Lord Leighton, letting him down, of course, as
gently as possible, but withal firmly and uncompromisingly. Who could
better console him than this beautiful and brilliant American girl, and
what would better suit that lovely head of hers than an English coronet
which was bright with the untarnished traditions of five hundred years?

Wherefore, then and there, Miss Nitocris Marmion, Bachelor of Science,
Licentiate of Literature and Art, and Gold-Medallist in Higher
Mathematics at the University of London, decided upon her first
experiment in match-making.

When the Professor got into his study and shut the door, there was a
curious smiling expression upon his refined, intellectual features.
Instead of sitting down to his desk, he lit a pipe and began walking up
and down the room, communing with his own soul in isolated sentences, as
was his wont when he was trying to arrive at any difficult decision.

In order to appreciate his deliberations and their result, it will be
necessary to say that Professor Hoskins van Huysman was one of the most
distinguished physicists in America, and he had also gained distinction
in applied mathematics. In addition to this, he was the inventor of many
marvellous contrivances for the demonstration and measurement of the
more obscure physical forces. His official position was that of Lecturer
and Demonstrator in Physical Science in Harvard University.

He and Professor Marmion had been deadly opponents in the field of
controversy for years. The latter had once detected an error in a very
learned monograph which he had published in the _Scientific American_ on
the "Co-Relation of the Etheric Forc