y Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome
youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of Nature
that had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in
Europe. Seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher
had investigated the secrets of the highest cloud region and of
the profoundest mines; he had satisfied himself of the causes that
kindled and kept alive the fires of the volcano; and had explained
the mystery of fountains, and how it is that they gush forth, some
so bright and pure, and others with such rich medicinal virtues,
from the dark bosom of the earth. Here, too, at an earlier period,
he had studied the wonders of the human frame, and attempted to
fathom the very process by which Nature assimilates all her precious
influences from earth and air, and from the spiritual world, to
create and foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however,
Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the
truth--against which all seekers sooner or later stumble--that
our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently
working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep
her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us
nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom
to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. Now,
however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not,
of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but
because they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path
of his proposed scheme for the treatment of Georgiana.

As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was
cold and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with
intent to reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow
of the birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could
not restrain a strong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted.

"Aminadab! Aminadab!" shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the
floor.

Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature,
but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which
was grimed with the vapors of the furnace. This personage had been
Aylmer's under-worker during his whole scientific career, and was
admirably fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness,
and the skill with which, while incapable of comprehending a single
principle, he executed all the details of his m