ief to go
into society, I think. The friends to whom we went--Lord and Lady
Melchester--had a large party staying with them, and we were, I believe,
the only outsiders who lived in the neighbourhood. One of their guests
was Professor Black, whose name I have already mentioned--a little,
dry, thin, acrid man, with thick black hair, innocent of the comb, and
pursed, straight lips. I had met him two or three times in London,
and as he had only just arrived at the castle, and scarcely knew his
fellow-visitors there, he brought his wine over to me when the ladies
left the dining-room, and entered into conversation. At the moment I
was glad, but before we followed the women I would have given a year--I
might say years--of my life not to have spoken to him, not to have heard
him speak that night.

How did we drift into that fatal conversation? I hardly remember. We
talked first of the neighbourhood, then swayed away to books, then to
people. Yes, that was how it came about. The Professor was speaking of
a man whom we both knew in town, a curiously effeminate man, whose every
thought and feeling seemed that of a woman. I said I disliked him,
and condemned him for his woman's demeanour, his woman's mind; but the
Professor thereupon joined issue with me.

"Pity the fellow, if you like," he uttered, in his rather strident
voice; "but as to condemning him, I would as soon condemn a tadpole for
not being a full-grown frog. His soul is beyond his power to manage, or
even to coerce, you may depend upon it."

Having sipped his port, he drew a little nearer to me, and slightly
dropped his voice.

"There would be less censure of individuals in this world," he said,
"if people were only a little more thoughtful. These souls are like
letters, and sometimes they are sealed up in the wrong envelope. For
instance, a man's soul may be put into a woman's body, or _vice versa_.
It has been so in D------'s case. A mistake has been made."

"By Providence?" I interrupted, with, perhaps, just a _soupcon_ of
sarcasm in my voice.

The Professor smiled.

"Suppose we imitate Thomas Hardy, and say by the President of the
Immortals, who makes sport with more humans than Tess," he answered.
"Mistakes may be deliberate, just as their reverse may be accidental.
Even a mighty power may condescend sometimes to a very practical joke.
To a thinker the world is full of apple-pie beds, and cold wet
sponges fall on us from at least half the doors we push o