lth. His eldest son, Maurice, was, at his own
request, sent to the Eastern States, where educational advantages were
greater; he entered, in due time, one of the best and oldest
universities, and, to the great disappointment of his father,
contracted a violent enthusiasm for natural science. Being convinced,
however, that remonstrance was vain, the old gentleman gradually
learned to look with a certain vague respect upon his son's
enigmatical pursuits, and at last surprised the latter by "coming down
quite handsomely" when funds were required for a geological excursion
to Norway.

III.

A scientific enthusiasm is one of the most uncomfortable things a
human bosom can harbor. It may be the source of a good deal of private
satisfaction to the devotee, but it makes him, in his own estimation,
superior to all the minor claims of society. This was, at least in an
eminent degree, the case with Maurice Fern. He was not wilfully
regardless of other people's comfort; he seemed rather to be
unconscious of their existence, except in a dim, general way, as a man
who gazes intently at a strong light will gradually lose sight of all
surrounding objects. And for all that, he was, by nature, a generous
man; in his unscientific moments, when his mind was, as it were, off
duty, he was capable of very unselfish deeds, and even of sublime
self-sacrifice. It was only a few weeks since he had given his plaid
to a shivering old woman in the Scottish stage-coach, and caught a
severe cold in consequence; but he had bestowed his charity in a
reserved, matter-of-fact way which made the act appear utterly
commonplace and unheroic. He found it less troublesome to shiver than
to be compelled to see some one else shivering, and his generosity
thus assumed the appearance of a deliberate choice between two evils.

Phenomena of this degree of complexity are extremely rare in Norway,
where human nature, as everything else, is of the large-lettered,
easily legible type; and even Tharald Ormgrass, who, in spite of his
good opinion of himself, was not an acute observer, had a lively sense
of the foreignness of the guest whom, for pecuniary reasons, he had
consented to lodge during the remainder of the summer.

A large, quaint, low-ceiled chamber on the second floor, with a
superfluity of tiny greenish window-panes, was assigned to the
stranger, and his African servant, Jake, was installed in a smaller
adjoining apartment. The day after his arrival