ow zero C. in the middle of the day; and when left in the
carriage for the night it had registered no less than 22 deg. below zero.

One of the Professors of the University received us as his guests,
assigning to us, as is usual when a lady is of the party, rooms
looking on the peristyle, but whose windows remained closed. Enva, of
course, spent her time chiefly with the ladies of the family. When
alone with me she talked freely, though needing some encouragement to
express her own ideas, or report what she had heard; but she had no
intention of concealment, perhaps no notion that I was interested in
her accounts of the prevalent feeling respecting the heretics of whom
she heard much, except of course that Eveena's father was among them.
Through her I learned that much pains had been taken to intensify and
excite into active hostility the dislike and distrust with which they
had always been regarded by the public at large, and especially by the
scientific guilds, whose members control all educational
establishments. That some attempt against them was meditated appeared
to be generally reported. Its nature and the movers in the matter were
not known, so far as I could gather, even to men so influential as the
chief Professors of the University. It was not merely that the women
had heard nothing on this point, but that their lords had dropped
expressions of surprise at the strictness with which the secret was
kept.

As their parents pay, when first the children are admitted to the
public Nurseries, the price of an average education, this special
instruction is given in the first instance at the cost of the State to
those who, on account of their taste and talent, are selected by the
teachers of the Colleges. But before they leave the University a bond
is taken for the amount of this outlay, which has to be repaid within
three years. It is fair to say that the tax is trivial in comparison
with the ordinary gains of their professions; the more so that no such
preference as, in our world, is almost universally given to a
reputation which can only be acquired by age, excludes the youth of
Mars from full and profitable employment.

The youths were delighted to receive a lecture on the forms of
Terrestrial government, and the outlines of their history; a topic I
selected because they were already acquainted with the substance of
the addresses elsewhere delivered. This afforded me an opportunity of
making the personal acquain