of the
woman prompts her to defy it. Fortunately for this last class of women,
they are not quite so likely to be perilously seductive as their more
emphatically feminine sisters.

Dr. Butts had known Lurida and her friend from the days of their infancy.
He had watched the development of Lurida's intelligence from its
precocious nursery-life to the full vigor of its trained faculties. He
had looked with admiration on the childish beauty of Euthymia, and had
seen her grow up to womanhood, every year making her more attractive. He
knew that if anything was to be done with his self-willed young scholar
and friend, it would be more easily effected through the medium of
Euthymia than by direct advice to the young lady herself. So the
thoughtful doctor made up his mind to have a good talk with Euthymia, and
put her on her guard, if Lurida showed any tendency to forget the
conventionalities in her eager pursuit of knowledge.

For the doctor's horse and chaise to stop at the door of Miss Euthymia
Tower's parental home was an event strange enough to set all the tongues
in the village going. This was one of those families where illness was
hardly looked for among the possibilities of life. There were other
families where a call from the doctor was hardly more thought of than a
call from the baker. But here he was a stranger, at least on his
professional rounds, and when he asked for Miss Euthymia the servant, who
knew his face well, stared as if he had held in his hand a warrant for
her apprehension.

Euthymia did not keep the doctor waiting very long while she made ready
to meet him. One look at her glass to make sure that a lock had not run
astray, or a ribbon got out of place, and her toilet for a morning call
was finished. Perhaps if Mr. Maurice Kirkwood had been announced, she
might have taken a second look, but with the good middle-aged, married
doctor one was enough for a young lady who had the gift of making all the
dresses she wore look well, and had no occasion to treat her chamber like
the laboratory where an actress compounds herself.

Euthymia welcomed the doctor very heartily. She could not help
suspecting his errand, and she was very glad to have a chance to talk
over her friend's schemes and fancies with him.

The doctor began without any roundabout prelude.

"I want to confer with you about our friend Lurida. Does she tell you
all her plans and projects?"

"Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, posi