to what family it belonged.

"That is more than you can tell me," was the curt answer.

"I can, if you will let me pluck a flower and examine it."

"Do, and be welcome," said the professor, and his visitor after a
brief glance at the flower told its species correctly. The professor
stared.

"Now," said Linnaeus, who had kept his eyes open, "what did you mean
by the crosses you had put all through my book?" He had seen it
lying on the professor's table, all marked up.

"They mark the errors you made," declared the other.

"Suppose we see about that," said the younger man and, taking the
book, led the way. They examined the flowers together, and when they
returned to the study all the pride had gone out of the professor.
He kept Linnaeus with him a month, never letting him out of his sight
and, when he left, implored him with tears to stay and share his
professorship; the pay was enough for both.

A letter that reached him from home on his return to Holland made
him realize with a start that he had overstayed his leave. It was
now in the fourth year since he had left Sweden. All the while he
had written to his sweetheart in the care of a friend who proved
false. He wanted her for himself and, when the three years had
passed, told her that Carl would never come back. Dr. Moraeus was of
the same mind, and had not a real friend of the absent lover turned
up in the nick of time Linnaeus would probably have stayed a Dutchman
to his death. Now, on the urgent message of his friend, he hastened
home, found his Elisabeth holding out yet, married her and settled
down in Stockholm to practise medicine.

Famous as he had become, he found the first stretch of the row at
home a hard one to hoe. His books brought him no income. Nobody
would employ him, "even for a sick servant," he complained. Envious
rivals assailed him and his botany, and there were days when herring
and black bread was fare not to be despised in Dr. Linnaeus'
household. But he kept pegging away and his luck changed. One
well-to-do patient brought another, and at last the queen herself
was opportunely seized with a bad cough. She saw one of her ladies
take a pill and asked what it was. Dr. Linnaeus' prescription for a
cold, she said, and it always cured her right up. So the doctor was
called to the castle and his cure worked there, too. Not long after
that he set down in his diary that "Now, no one can get well without
my help."

But he was not happy. "On