tion had set in the background--emotions which
concern the common man, but which the deeply ambitious chemist, eager
to discover the chemical molecular structure of the plasm, must put
aside with a firm hand.

IV

A SECOND MEETING

Viola was just leaving her mother's gate the following afternoon when
a man's voice, cordial, assured, and cultivated, startled her.

"Good-morning. Is this your home?"

She looked up to meet the smiling eyes of the stranger horseman. Again
an indefinable charm of manner robbed his greeting of offence, and
quite composedly she replied:

"Yes, this is our home."

"What a view you have, and what music!" He indicated the river which
ran white and broad over its pebbles, just below the walk. "I am
enchanted with the place. I think you must love it very much."

Her face expressed a qualified assent. "Oh yes, but I get tired of it
sometimes, especially in winter when we are all shut in with snow."

"Then you really are a year-round resident? I suppose my view _is_ the
tourist's view. I can't believe anybody lives here in winter. I hope
you won't mind my introducing myself"--he handed her a card. "You made
such a pretty picture up there beside the trail yesterday that I
couldn't forbear speaking to you on a second meeting. I wanted to
know whether you were real or just a fragment of sunset cloud."

The ease and candor of his manner, joined to the effect of the name on
the card, fully reassured her, and she looked up with a smile. "Won't
you come in and rest?"

"Thank you, I should like particularly to do so, I've been for a climb
up that peak behind your cottage and I'm tired."

Her reserve quite melted, the girl led the way to the door where her
mother stood in artless wonder.

"Mother, this is Dr. Serviss, of Corlear College."

"I'm glad to know you, sir," said Mrs. Lambert, with old-fashioned
formality. "Won't you come in?"

"Thank you. It will be a pleasure."

"Are you a physician?" she asked, as she took his hat and stick.

"Oh, dear, no! Nothing so useful as that. I'm a doctor by brevet, as
they say in the army." Then, as though acknowledging that his hostess
was entitled to know a little more about her intrusive guest, he
added: "I am a student of biology, Mrs. Lambert, and assistant to Dr.
Weissmann, the head of the bacteriological department of Corlear
Medical College. We study germs--microscopic 'bugs,'" he ended, with
humorous glance at Viola. "What a charmin