the doctor, taking his
favourite position on the rug.

"You go straight to the fire--like all the rest of the tribe," said Mr.
Linden.

"Is it inconsistent with the character of such an extra ordinary midge,
to go straight to the mark?"

"Nobody ever saw a midge do that yet, I'll venture to say."

"And you are resolved to act in character," said the doctor gravely.
"You have got clean away from the point. I asked you last night to tell
me what you thought of me. We are alone now--do it, Linden!"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I don't know. A man likes to talk of himself--cela s'entend--but I
care enough about you, to care to know how I stand in your thoughts. If
you asked me how I stand in my own, I could not tell you; and I should
like to know how the just balances of your mind--I'm not talking
ironically, Linden,--weigh and poise me;--what sort of alloy your
mental tests make me out. No matter why!--indulge me, and let me have
it. I presume it is nothing better than philosophical curiosity. I
am--every man is to himself--an enigma--a mystery;--and I should like
to have a sudden outside view--from optics that I have some respect
for."

"I gave you the outside view last night," Mr. Linden said. But then he
came and stood near the doctor and answered him simply; speaking with
that grave gentleness of interest which rarely failed to give the
speaker a place in people's hearts, even when his words failed of it.

"I think much of you, in the first place,--and in the second place, I
wish you would let me think more;--you stand in my thoughts as an
object of very warm interest, of very earnest prayer. Measured--not by
my standards, but by those which the word of God sets up, you are like
your own admirably made and adjusted microscope, with all the higher
powers left off. The only enigma, the only mystery is, that you
yourself cannot see this."

Dr. Harrison looked at him with a grave, considerative face, drawing a
little back; perhaps to do it the better.

"Do you mean to say, that _you_ do such a thing as pray for _me?_"

A slight, sweet smile came with the answer--"Can you doubt it?"

"Why I might very reasonably doubt it,--though not your word. Why do
you,--may I ask?"

"What can I do for a man in deadly peril, whom my arm cannot reach?"
The tone was very kindly, very earnest; the eyes with their deep light
looked full into the doctor's.

Dr. Harrison was silent, meeting the look and taking the depth and