?" pursued the girl.

"I suppose they leave it to somebody. Suppose it was left to you?"

"Don't think me silly, papa; I've thought a lot about it, and I shall do
something quite different."

"Different from what?"

"You know mamma is in the Orthopedic Hospital, and in the Ragged
Schools, and in the Infirmary, and I don't know what all."

"And wouldn't you help them?"

"Of course, I would help. But everybody does those things, the practical
things, the charities; I mean to do things for the higher life."

Mr. Mavick took his cigar from his mouth and looked puzzled. "You want
to build a cathedral?"

"No, I don't mean that sort of higher life, I mean civilization, the
things at the top. I read an essay the other day that said it was easy
to raise money for anything mechanical and practical in a school, but
nobody wanted to give for anything ideal."

"Quite right," said her father; "the world is full of cranks. You seem
as vague as your essayist."

"Don't you remember, papa, when we were in Oxford how amused you were
with the master, or professor, who grumbled because the college was full
of students, and there wasn't a single college for research?

"I asked McDonald afterwards what he meant; that is how I first got my
idea, but I didn't see exactly what it was until recently. You've got
to cultivate the high things--that essay says--the abstract, that
which does not seem practically useful, or society will become low and
material."

"By George!" cried Mavick, with a burst of laughter, "you've got the
lingo. Go on, I want to see where you are going to light."

"Well, I'll tell you some more. You know my tutor is English. McDonald
says she believes he is the most learned man in eighteenth-century
literature living, and his dream is to write a history of it. He is
poor, and engaged all the time teaching, and McDonald says he will die,
no doubt, and leave nothing of his investigations to the world."

"And you want to endow him?"

"He is only one. There is the tutor of history. Teach, teach, teach, and
no time or strength left for investigation. You ought to hear him tell
of the things just to be found out in American history. You see what I
mean? It is plainer in the sciences. The scholars who could really
make investigations, and do something for the world, have to earn their
living and have no time or means for experiments. It seems foolish as I
say it, but I do think, papa, there is something in it."

"