o Helen, who
had nothing but _ennui_ to expect in Metropolisville, and who was
therefore delighted. Delighted is a strong word for one so cool: perhaps
it would be better to say that she was relieved and pleased at the
prospect of passing an evening with so curious and interesting a
companion. For Charlton was both curious and interesting to her. She
sympathized with his intellectual activity, and she was full of wonder at
his intense moral earnestness.

As for Albert, botany suddenly took on a new interest in his eyes. He had
hitherto regarded it as a science for girls. But now he was so profoundly
desirous of discovering the true character of the tissue in the plant
which Miss Minorkey had dissected, that it seemed to him of the utmost
importance to settle it that very evening. His mother for the first time
complained of his going out, and seemed not very well satisfied about
something. He found that he was likely to have a good opportunity, after
supper, to speak to Isabel Marlay in regard to his sister and her lover,
but somehow the matter did not seem so exigent as it had. The night
before, he had determined that it was needful to check the intimacy
before it went farther, that every day of delay increased the peril; but
things often look differently under different circumstances, and now the
most important duty in life for Albert Charlton was the immediate
settlement of a question in structural botany by means of microscopic
investigation. Albert was at this moment a curious illustration of the
influence of scientific enthusiasm, for he hurriedly relieved his hat of
its little museum, ate his supper, got out his microscope, and returned
to the hotel. He placed the instrument on the old piano, adjusted the
object, and pedagogically expounded to Miss Minorkey the true method of
observing. Microscopy proved very entertaining to both. Albert did not
feel sure that it might not become a life-work with him. It would be a
delightful thing to study microscopic botany forever, if he could have
Helen Minorkey to listen to his enthusiastic expositions. From her
science the transition to his was easy, and they studied under every
combination of glasses the beautiful lace of a dragon-fly's wing, and the
irregular spots on a drab grasshopper which ran by chance half-across one
of his eyes. The thrifty landlord had twice looked in at the door in hope
of finding the parlor empty, intending in which case to put out the lamp.
But I