ute. It was as if that kiss had suddenly transformed the
child into a woman.

V.

Summer hurried on at a rapid pace, the days grew perceptibly shorter,
and the birds of passage gathered in large companies on the beach and
on the hill-tops, holding noisy consultations to prepare for their
long southward journey. Maurice still stayed on at the Ormgrass Farm,
but a strange, feverish mood had come over him. He daily measured the
downward progress of the glacier in agitated expectancy, although as a
scientific experiment it had long ceased to yield him any
satisfaction. That huge congealed residue of ten thousand winters had,
however, acquired a human interest to him which it had lacked before;
what he had lost as a scientist he had gained as a man. For, with all
respect for Science, that monumental virgin at whose feet so many
cherished human illusions have already been sacrificed, it is not to
be denied that from an unprofessional point of view a warm-blooded,
fair-faced little creature like Elsie is a worthier object of a
bachelor's homage. And, strive as he would, Maurice could never quite
rid himself of the impression that the glacier harbored in its snowy
bosom some fell design against Elsie's peace and safety. It is even
possible that he never would have discovered the real nature of his
feelings for her if it had not been for this constant fear that she
might any moment be Snatched away from him.

It was a novel experience in a life like his, so lonely amid its cold,
abstract aspirations, to have this warm, maidenly spring-breath
invading those chambers of his soul, hitherto occupied by shivering
calculations regarding the duration and remoteness of the ice age. The
warmer strata of feeling which had long lain slumbering beneath this
vast superstructure of glacial learning began to break their way to
the light, and startled him very much as the earth must have been
startled when the first patch of green sod broke into view, steaming
under the hot rays of the noonday sun. Abstractly considered, the
thing seemed preposterous enough for the plot of a dime novel, while
in the light of her sweet presence the development of his love seemed
as logical as an algebraic problem. At all events, the result was in
both cases equally inexorable. It was useless to argue that she was
his inferior in culture and social accomplishments; she was still
young and flexible, and displayed an aptness for seizing upon his
ideas and a