r outrage of domicile.
Descend, Mons. Lavalle!'

"No one answers.

"'Xavier Lavalle, in the name of the Law, descend and submit to process
for outrage of domicile.'

"Xavier, roused from his calculations, only comprehending the last
words: 'Outrage of domicile? My dear mayor, who is the man that has
corrupted thy Julie?'

"The mayor, furious, 'Xavier Lavalle----'

"Xavier, interrupting: 'I have not that felicity. I am only a dealer in
cyclones!'

"My faith, he raised one then! All Meudon attended in the streets, and
my Xavier, after a long time comprehending what he had done, excused
himself in a thousand apologies. At last the reconciliation was effected
in our house over a supper at two in the morning--Julie in a wonderful
costume of compromises, and I have her and the mayor pacified in beds in
the blue room."

And on the next day, while the mayor rebuilds his roof, her Xavier
departs anew for the Aurora Borealis, there to commence his life's
work. M. Victor Lavalle tells us of that historic collision (_en plane_)
on the flank of Hecla between Herrera, then a pillar of the Spanish
school, and the man destined to confute his theories and lead him
intellectually captive. Even through the years, the immense laugh of
Lavalle as he sustains the Spaniard's wrecked plane, and cries:
"Courage! _I_ shall not fall till I have found Truth, and I hold _you_
fast!" rings like the call of trumpets. This is that Lavalle whom the
world, immersed in speculations of immediate gain, did not know nor
suspect--the Lavalle whom they adjudged to the last a pedant and a
theorist.

The human, as apart from the scientific, side (developed in his own
volumes) of his epoch-making discoveries is marked with a simplicity,
clarity, and good sense beyond praise. I would specially refer such as
doubt the sustaining influence of ancestral faith upon character and
will to the eleventh and nineteenth chapters, in which are contained the
opening and consummation of the Tellurionical Records extending over
nine years. Of their tremendous significance be sure that the modest
house at Meudon knew as little as that the Records would one day be the
world's standard in all official meteorology. It was enough for them
that their Xavier--this son, this father, this husband--ascended
periodically to commune with powers, it might be angelic, beyond their
comprehension, and that they united daily in prayers for his safety.

"Pray for me," he says upon