shook her head. "I don't know what that is, Mr. Linden."

"Then I will have the pleasure of introducing you. Ordinary geography
is but a shell without it. And if we accidentally go deeper down than
the stratum of geography, I will try and bring you back safe. But Miss
Faith, you have not done with this book yet--the subject-matter of it.
I want you to carry that further."

"Well," she said smiling,--"I like it. I am ready. What comes next, Mr.
Linden?"

"Did you pay any attention to the algebra part of the examination
yesterday?"

"Yes, I believe so. I paid attention to it all--I didn't understand
what some of it was about, but I believe I know what you mean."

"How should you like to work with letters and signs instead of figures?
By the way, Miss Faith, your sevens are too much like your nines, and
if you drew a check for $500 with that five, you might find yourself
paying out $800."

She coloured again, but bowed her head in assent, quite ignoring in her
interest in the subject the extravagance of the supposition by which he
illustrated it.

"You shall not say that again, Mr. Linden."

"Don't pledge yourself for me," he said smiling,--"I am a lawless kind
of person, as perhaps you have found out. But if I were to spend one
minute well on the first day of the year, and each succeeding day add
to my well-spent minutes so many more as the year was days old--how
much of December would be well spent?"

But Faith could not tell.

"You see what is before you--" Mr. Linden said; "you must work that
out, Miss Faith, in more ways than one. Well tell me this--Which is
nearest to us now,--my sister Pet or the Khan of Tartary,--supposing
her in Rome and him in his own dominions?"

Faith coloured again, a good deal, and with some sorrow.

"I am glad you asked me," she said;--"I want you should know it,--but I
don't know anything about that, Mr. Linden. I know a _little_, of
course," she said correcting herself, "but I couldn't answer you."

"But why can't you understand," he said looking at her, "that I am just
some old, torn, dog-eared book of questions that you are looking into
for the first time? I don't like to be made to feel like a bran new
schoolbook."

Faith looked at him, and probably the words "old, torn, and dog-eared"
made a peculiar contrast, for her eye flashed and in spite of
everything she laughed, her musical little laugh.

"That sounds reasonable," said Mr. Linden. "I like to be laughed at.
B