nge occurrences. With the exception of
Balsamides and the professor, they were all nearly related, and yet they
were as unlike each other as people of one family could be. The gentle,
saintly Mary Carvel had little in common with her aesthetic sister
Chrysophrasia Dabstreak, and neither of them was very like Madame
Patoff. Sturdy John Carvel was not like his sleek son Macaulay, except
in honesty and good-nature. Alexander Patoff was indeed like his mother,
but Paul's stern, cold nature was that of his father, long dead and
forgotten. As for Hermione, she presented a combination of character
derived from the best points in her father and mother, marred only, I
thought, by a little of that vacillation which was the chief
characteristic of her aunt Chrysophrasia. Cutter and Balsamides were men
of widely different nationalities and temperaments: the one a ruthless
scientist, the other an equally ruthless fatalist; the one ready to
sacrifice the lives of others to a fanatic worship of his profession,
the other willing to sacrifice himself to the inevitable with heroic
courage, but holding other men's lives as of no more value than his own.
A strange company, I thought, and yet in many respects a most
interesting company, too.

"Shall we go in-doors and have tea?" I said after a few moments,
collecting my guests together. "The view is even better from the windows
above."

I led them into the stone-paved vestibule of the wooden house, and up
the wooden stairs to the upper story. Presently they were all installed
in the large room where the preparations for the small festivity had
been made, and I began to do the honors of my bachelor establishment.
In a Turkish family, the room where we sat, and the three others upon
the same floor, would have been set apart for the harem, for one door
separated them from the staircase and from all the rest of the house,--a
large strong door, painted white, and provided with an excellent lock
and key. I had selected one room for my bedroom, and the rest were
furnished with Oriental simplicity, not to say economy. But Balsamides
had sent down a bale of beautiful carpets, which he lent me for the
occasion, and which I had hung upon the walls and spread upon the floors
and divans. Tea, coffee, sherbet, a beautiful view, and a little
illumination of the gardens, constituted the whole entertainment, but
the enthusiasm of my guests knew no bounds, probably because they had
never seen anything of t