ot engaged."

"No? But it makes no difference. You know, I think it almost a shame for
that old woman to dance. It makes me feel--feel--I do not know, but you
know--you understand."

"Yes; I feel the same way."

"Yes. Have you been working hard to-day?"

"Pretty hard. What have you been doing?"

"Reading a book and trying to draw. I could do neither. Spread
everywhere was a drawing that I could not catch; and hummed in the air
were words more beautiful than in the book. They have quit dancing. I am
glad."

The Professor resumed his talk with the "discoverer." "One of the truest
pleasures enjoyed by man is to meet a woman with a mind."

"Indeed! And are they so very rare?"

"Oh, no, no," the Professor quickly replied, realizing that he had
struck the wrong key. "As an educator, I know the scope and the power of
the female mind--I do not like the expression, female mind, but I must
employ it to make my meaning clear. Yes, I know the scope and the power,
comparing more than favorably with the mind of man. But--" and here he
halted, with a finger in the air, to give the word emphasis--"but, once
in a long while, we meet an exceptional female mind, and it is then that
we experience our truest pleasure. Such a mind, I may say, is possessed
by my wife; and, begging the pardon of your presence, such is the mind
that I have met here to-night."

She looked at him with a woman's doubt, which means more than half
believing. She glanced at Gunhild, wondering whether the girl had
overheard the remark. She seemed anxious that some one should have
caught it. Compliments are almost worthless when they reach none but the
flattered ear. And to tell that they have been paid is too much like
presenting one with a withered flower. Gunhild had not heard the remark.
She was picking up Milford's slowly dropping words.

"You are very kind, Professor, but, really, you don't expect me to
believe you when you express such satisfaction at meeting me."

The Professor appeared grief-smitten. "Madam, as an educator, I have
been accustomed to deal with many phases of the human mind. And I have
lived long enough to verify the adage that honesty is the best policy,
in words as well as in acts; and I have learned that, while truth told
to man is a virtue, it is, told to a woman, a sublimity." He bowed and
twisted the sharp point of his red beard, a gimlet with which he would
bore through the soft sheeting of a woman's incredulity. At this mome