ch of vacation, when they decided
to take a walk after their last lesson, instead of returning immediately
to Paris.

When the day came the sun was very hot; they had walked some distance,
when Phillis expressed a wish to rest for a few minutes. They seated
themselves in a shady copse, and soon found themselves in each other's
arms.

Since then Saniel had never spoken of marriage, and neither had Phillis.

They loved each other.

CHAPTER VII

A LITTLE DINNER FOR TWO

Saniel was still at work when Phillis returned.

"You have not yet finished, dear?"

"Give me time to cure, by correspondence, a malady that has not yielded
to the care of ten physicians, and I am yours."

In three lines he finished the letter, and left his desk.

"I am ready. What shall I do?"

"Help me to take things out of my pockets."

"Don't press too hard," she said as he took each parcel.

At last the pockets were empty.

"Where shall we dine?" she asked.

"Here, as the dining-room is transformed into a laboratory."

"Then let us begin by making a good fire. I wet my feet coming from the
station."

"I do not know whether there is any wood."

"Let us see."

She took the candle and they passed into the kitchen, which, like the
dining-room, was a laboratory, a stable where Saniel kept in cages pigs
from India and rabbits for his experiments, and where Joseph heaped
pell-mell the things that were in his way, without paying any attention
to the stove in which there never had been a fire. But their search was
vain; there was everything in this kitchen except fire-wood.

"Do you value these boxes?" she asked, caressing a little pig that she
had taken in her arms.

"Not at all; they enclosed the perfumes and tonics, but they are useless
now."

They returned to the office, Saniel carrying the boxes.

"We will set the table here," she said, gayly, for Saniel told her that
the dining-room was uninviting, as it was a small bacteriological
laboratory.

The table was set by Phillis, who went and came, walking about with a
gracefulness that Saniel admired.

"You are doing nothing," she said.

"I am watching you and thinking."

"And the result of these thoughts?"

"It is that you have a fund of good-humor and gayety, an exuberance of
life, that would enliven a man condemned to death."

"And what would have become of us, I should like to know, if I had been
melancholy and discouraged when we lost my poor papa? He was joy