"H'm! well--what you say, Mademoiselle Gray?" demanded Nita, with an
arch look at her companion. "Is the Professor's request reasonable?"

To this Emma replied that as Nature was, upon the whole, a more
important lady than either of them, she thought it _was_ reasonable;
whereupon the Professor agreed to postpone his visit to the Jardin, and
devote his day to fixing stakes and making observations on the Mer de
Glace, with a view to ascertaining the diurnal rate of speed at which
the glacier flowed.

"You spoke of putting certain questions to Nature, Professor," said
Lawrence, when the party were slowly toiling up the mountain-side.
"Have they not already been put to her, and satisfactorily answered some
time ago?"

"They have been put," replied the Professor, "by such learned men as
Saussure, Agassiz, Rendu, Charpentier, and by your own countryman
Forbes, and others, and undoubtedly their questions have received
distinct answers, insomuch that our knowledge of the nature and action
of glacial ice is now very considerable. But, my dear sir, learned men
have not been agreed as to what Nature's replies mean, nor have they
exhausted the subject; besides, no true man of science is quite
satisfied with merely hearing the reports of others, he is not content
until he has met and conversed with Nature face to face. I wish,
therefore, to have a personal interview with her in these Alps, or
rather," continued the Professor, in a more earnest tone, "I do wish to
see the works of my Maker with my own eyes, and to hear His voice with
the ears of my own understanding."

"Your object, then, is to verify, not to discover?" said Lawrence.

"It is both. Primarily to verify; but the man of science always goes
forth with the happy consciousness that the mine in which he proposes to
dig is rich in gems, and that, while seeking for one sort, he may light
upon another unexpectedly."

"When Captain Wopper turned up yonder gem, he lit on one which, if not
of the purest water, is unquestionably a brilliant specimen of the class
to which it belongs," said Lewis, coming up at that moment, and pointing
to a projection in the somewhat steep part of the path up which they
were winding.

The gem referred to was no other than our friend Gillie White. That
hilarious youth, although regenerated outwardly as regards blue cloth
and buttons, had not by any means changed his spirit since fortune began
to smile on him. Finding that his mistres