all. He was rich, and his professorship
was little more to him than a way of spending money. He had no parents,
and no relations besides the Dudleys and the Murrays. Alone in the
world, George Strong looked upon himself as having in Esther a younger
sister whom he liked, and a sort of older sister, whom he also liked, in
his Aunt Sarah.

When, after lunching with the Dudleys, Professor Strong walked down
Fifth Avenue to his club, he looked, to the thousand people whom he
passed, like what he was, an intelligent man, with a figure made for
action, an eye that hated rest, and a manner naturally sympathetic. His
forehead was so bald as to give his face a look of strong character,
which a dark beard rather helped to increase. He was a popular fellow,
known as George by whole gangs of the roughest miners in Nevada, where
he had worked for years as a practical geologist, and it would have been
hard to find in America, Europe, or Asia, a city in which some one would
not have smiled at the mention of his name, and asked where George was
going to turn up next.

He kept his word that evening with his friend Hazard. At nine o'clock he
was at the house, next door to St. John's church, where the new
clergyman was trying to feel himself at home. In a large library, with
book-cases to the ceiling, and books lying in piles on the floor; with
pictures, engravings and etchings leaning against the books and the
walls, and every sort of literary encumbrance scattered in the way of
heedless feet; in the midst of confusion confounded, Mr. Hazard was
stretched on a sofa trying to read, but worn out by fatigue and
excitement. Though his chaos had not settled into order, it was easy to
read his character from his surroundings. The books were not all
divinity. There were classics of every kind, even to a collection of
Eastern literature; a mass of poetry in all languages; not a few novels;
and what was most conspicuous, an elaborate collection of illustrated
works on art, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Medieval, Mexican, Japanese,
Indian, and whatever else had come in his way. Add to this a shelf of
music, and then--construct the tall, slender, large-eyed, thin-nosed,
dark-haired figure lying exhausted on the sofa.

He rose to greet Strong with a laugh like a boy, and cried: "Well,
skeptic, how do the heathen rage?"

"The heathen are all right," replied Strong. "The orthodox are the
ragers."

"Never mind the orthodox," said Hazard. "I will look a