of
the place. It was unthinkable that any man or woman should be rude or
thoughtless enough to break it by a loud word.

This room was hers day or night, winter or summer, always heated and
lighted, and a hundred swift, silent servants at hand to do her bidding.
Around the room on serried shelves, dressed in leather aprons, stood
twenty-five thousand more servants of the centuries of the past ready
to answer any question her heart or brain might ask of the world's life
since the dawn of Time.

In the stack-room below, on sixty-three miles of shelves, stood a
million others ready to come at her slightest nod. She loved to dream
here of the future, in the moments she must wait for these messengers
she had summoned. In this magic room the past ceased to be. These
myriads of volumes made the past a myth. It was all the living,
throbbing present--with only the golden future to be explored.

Her number flashed in red letters on the electric blackboard.

She rose and carried her books to the seat number assigned her near the
center of the southern division of the room on the extreme left beside
the bookcases containing the dictionaries of all languages.

Her seat was on the aisle which skirted the shelves. She found the full
description of the flower in which she was interested, made her notes
and closed the volume with a lazy movement of her slender, graceful
hand.

She lifted her eyes and they rested on a remarkable-looking young man
about her own age who stood gazing in an embarrassed, helpless sort of
way at the row of ponderous volumes marked "The Century Dictionary."

He was evidently a newcomer. By his embarrassment she could easily tell
that it was the first time he had ever ventured into this room.

He looked at the books, apparently puzzled by their number. He raised
his hand and ran his fingers nervously through the short, thick, red
hair which covered his well-shaped head.

The girl's attention was first fixed by the strange contrast between his
massive jaw and short neck which spoke the physical strength of an ox,
and the slender gracefully tapering fingers of his small hand. The wrist
was small, the fingers almost feminine in their lines.

He caught her look of curious interest and to her horror, smiled and
walked straight to her seat.

There was no mistaking his determination to speak. It was useless to
drop her eyes or turn aside. He would certainly follow.

She blushed and gazed at him in a timid