nd no eyes apply there," said Rachel.

"We found a great prize, too, the other day. Rosie!"

At the call a brown-haired, brown-eyed child of seven, looking like a
little fawn, sprang to the window from the outside.

"My dear, will you show the sphynx to Miss Curtis?"

The little girl daintily brought a box covered with net, in which a huge
apple-green caterpillar, with dashes of bright colour on his sides,
and a horny spike on his tail, was feasting upon tamarisk leaves. Grace
asked if she was going to keep it. "Yes, till it buries itself," said
the child. "Aunt Ermine thinks it is the elephant sphynx."

"I cannot be sure," said the aunt, "my sister tried to find a figure of
it at Villars', but he had no book that gave the caterpillars. Do you
care for those creatures?"

"I like to watch them," said Grace, "but I know nothing about them
scientifically; Rachel does that."

"Then can you help us to the history of our sphynx?" asked Miss
Williams, with her pleasant look.

"I will see if I have his portrait," said Rachel, "but I doubt it. I
prefer general principles to details."

"Don't you find working out details the best way of entering into
general principles?"

It was new to Rachel to find the mention of a general principle received
neither with a stare nor a laugh; and she gathered herself up to answer,
"Naming and collecting is not science."

"And masonry is not architecture, but you can't have architecture
without it."

"One can have broad ideas without all the petty work of flower botanists
and butterfly naturalists."

"Don't you think the broad ideas would be rather of the hearsay order,
at least to most people, unless their application were worked out in the
trifle that came first to hand?"

"Experimental philosophy," said Rachel, in rather a considering tone,
as if the notion, when presented to her in plain English, required
translation into the language of her thoughts.

"If you like to call it so," said Miss Williams, with a look of arch
fun. "For instance, the great art of mud pie taught us the porous nature
of clay, the expansive power of steam, etc. etc."

"You had some one to improve it to you?"

"Oh dear no. Only afterwards, when we read of such things we remembered
how our clay manufactures always burst in the baking unless they were
well dried first."

"Then you had the rare power of elucidating a principle?"

"No, not I. My brother had; but I could only perceive the confirmation