arn in life. Nature's wonders are numerous and full of instruction
for the thoughtful student. It seems to me sometimes that my soul
converses with nature. A cloud obscures the sky, and I feel that
cloud passing over my heart; a ray of sunshine illumines the earth,
and causes my flowers to open their petals and the dew-drops on the
grass to shine like millions of diamonds, and I smile."

"You have the soul of a poetess," he said.

She laughed a rippling laugh. "I do not know, but I think the study
of nature, the proper study of man."

"Others,--with a less poetic soul, doubtless--seem to differ from
you. I think Pope did. But you love nature, and do not care for
man."

Her pearly teeth saw the light.

When Adele bade good-night to Frank that evening, a strange
presentiment of coming evil overcame her.

She walked inside her father's house. When she entered the kitchen
she was surprised at finding it empty. The lamp was on the table. It
was lighted. Beside it was an empty mug. She lighted a candle, went
into the parlour, and divested herself of her hat and jacket,
thinking her father would soon return.

She did not feel at ease, however. Every other minute she turned
round nervously, half afraid of finding someone in the room. Where
could her father be? She grew anxious. Going at the foot of the
stairs, she called out: "Father, father."

Not a sound, save that of her voice which sounded funereally.

She went to the door, opened it, and looked outside. Everything was
still. All at once she heard something. It was not a shout, it was a
scream, a shriek, an entreaty; it came again, much louder this time,
she could distinctly hear the word: "Help."

She distinguished that voice; there was no mistaking it, she would
have discerned its sound amongst ten thousand. This voice was
Frank's. He had cried, he had implored, there was but one thing for
her to do--to run to his aid.

Without even taking the trouble to fetch her hat, she hastily ran in
the direction from whence the sound came.

Breathless, she arrived upon the scene. There, on the ground, lay
the prostrate figure of a man, his head supported on the knee of
another one.

The prostrate figure was her father's, the other man was Frank.

When he saw her with her hair dishevelled and her frantic look,
Frank looked astonished. He then beckoned to her and said: "It is
only a faint, and I hope only a slight bleeding of the nose. I think
he will soon regain co