you are going to do?"

"No," she answered, "I'm electing a half-course in Nature Work as well."

"Nature Work? Well! Well! That, I suppose, means cramming up a lot of
biology and zoology, does it not?"

"No," said the girl, "it's not exactly done with books. I believe it is
all done by Field Work."

"Field Work?"

"Yes. Field Work four times a week and an Excursion every Saturday."

"And what do you do in the Field Work?"

"The girls," she answered, "go out in groups anywhere out of doors, and
make a Nature Study of anything they see."

"How do they do that?" I asked.

"Why, they look at it. Suppose, for example, they come to a stream or a
pond or anything--"

"Yes--"

"Well, they _look_ at it."

"Had they never done that before?" I asked.

"Ah, but they look at it as a Nature Unit. Each girl must take forty
units in the course. I think we only do one unit each day we go out."

"It must," I said, "be pretty fatiguing work, and what about the
Excursion?"

"That's every Saturday. We go out with Miss Stalk, the professor of
Ambulation."

"And where do you go?"

"Oh, anywhere. One day we go perhaps for a trip on a steamer and another
Saturday somewhere in motors, and so on."

"Doing what?" I asked.

"Field Work. The aim of the course--I'm afraid I'm quoting Miss Stalk
but I don't mind, she's really fine--is to break nature into its
elements--"

"I see--"

"So as to view it as the external structure of Society and make
deductions from it."

"Have you made any?" I asked.

"Oh, no"--she laughed--"I'm only starting the work this term. But, of
course, I shall have to. Each girl makes at least one deduction at the
end of the course. Some of the seniors make two or three. But you have
to make _one_."

"It's a great course," I said. "No wonder you are going to be busy; and,
as you say, how much better than loafing round here doing nothing."

"Isn't it?" said the girl student with enthusiasm in her eyes. "It gives
one such a sense of purpose, such a feeling of doing something."

"It must," I answered.

"Oh, goodness," she exclaimed, "there's the lunch bell. I must skip and
get ready."

She was just vanishing from my side when the Burly Male Student, who was
also staying in the hotel, came puffing up after his five-mile run. He
was getting himself into trim for enlistment, so he told me. He noted
the retreating form of the college girl as he sat down.

"I've just been talking to her," I said,