sneer. It is astonishing to see how much a slight change can accomplish. "Perhaps you know why she was afraid?"

"Yes," Sally acknowledged, "perhaps I do."

"Well, would you be good enough to give me the benefit of your ideas on that subject?"

Sally flushed a little, but she did not falter in the directness of her gaze any more than in her speech. "You generally make her cry when she asks you for anything."

The professor flushed in his turn. "Indeed!" said he. "A most observing child! A very observing child, indeed. And so your mother sent you in her place."

"She didn't," said Sally impassively, although with a rising color; "she doesn't know anything about my coming."

"Oh!" remarked the professor reflectively. "So you came on your own hook—off your own bat."

She nodded.

There was a long silence while Professor Ladue drummed on the table with his fingers. Sally waited.

At last he turned. "Sally," he said, with a slight return of that gayety he had shown on her entrance, "the high courage of Miss Sally Ladue shall receive the reward which it deserves. It is not fitting that it should not. Bearding the lion in his den is nothing to it. I am curious to know, Sally, whether you—" But there the professor stopped. He had been about to ask his daughter, aged ten, whether she was not afraid. He knew that she was not afraid. He knew that, if there was some fear, some hesitation, some doubt as to the exact outcome of the interview, it was not on Sally's part.

Sally was waiting for him to finish.

"Well, Sally," he continued, waving his hand airily, "make your arrangements. Miss Ladue is to go to dancing-school and dance her feet off if she wants to. Never mind the price." He waved his hand again. "Never mind the price. What are a few paltry dollars that they should interfere with pleasure? What is money to dancing?"

Sally was very solemn. "I think the price is ten dollars," she said.

Professor Ladue snapped his fingers in the air. "It doesn't matter. Poof! Ten dollars or ten hundred! Let us dance!"

Sally's eyes filled, but she choked the tears back.

"Thank you, father," she said gently. "Mother will be glad."

He rose and bowed, his hand on his heart. "That is important, of course."

"I think it is the only important thing about it," Sally returned promptly.

The professor bowed again, without reply, and Sally turned to go.

It may have been that the professor's heart smote him. It may have been that he had been aware of Sally's unshed tears. It may have been that he regretted that he should have been the cause—but I may be doing him an injustice. Very likely he was above such things as the tears of his wife and his daughter. It is quite possible that he was as proud of his ability to draw tears as of his ability to draw, correctly, a bone that he never saw. Whatever the reason, he spoke again as Sally was opening the door.

"Will Miss Ladue," he asked, with an elaborate politeness, "honor my poor study with her presence when she has more leisure? When she has not Charlie on her mind? We can, if she pleases, go farther into the matter of lizards or of coal trees."

"Thank you, father," Sally replied.

Professor Ladue was conscious of a regret that she spoke without enthusiasm. But it was too much to expect—so soon.

"I shall be pleased," he said.

An idea, which seemed just to have occurred to Sally, made her face brighten. The professor noted it.

"And can—may I bring Henrietta?"

"Bring Henrietta!" cried the professor. "That is food for thought. Who is this Henrietta? It seems to me that you mentioned her once before."

"Yes," said Sally eagerly. "I did. She is Henrietta Sanderson and Fox Sanderson is her brother. He came to see you the other day. You weren't at home."

"Fox Sanderson!"

"Yes," said Sally, again; "and when I told him that you weren't at home, he came over the wall. He brought Henrietta. He knows a lot about sauruses."

"He knows a lot about sauruses, does he?" the professor repeated thoughtfully. "It seems to me that I have some recollection of Fox Sanderson."

He turned and rummaged in a drawer of his desk. He seemed unable to find what he was looking for, and he extracted from the depths of the drawer many empty cigarette boxes, which he cast into the grate, and a handful of papers, which he dumped on the top of the desk, impatiently. He sorted these over, in the same impatient manner, and finally he found it. It was a letter and was near the bottom of the pile. He opened it and read it.

"H-mph!" he said, reading, "Thanks me for my kind permission, does he? Now, Miss Ladue, can you give me any light upon that? What permission does he refer to? Permission to do what?"

Sally shook her head. But her father was not looking.

"Oh," he said; "h-m. I must have said that I'd see him." He read on. "I must even have said that he could study with me; that I'd help him. Very thoughtless of me, very thoughtless, indeed! It must have been after—well. And he will be here in the course of three weeks." The professor turned the leaf. "This was written a month ago. So he's here, is he, Sally?"

"Yes," Sally answered, "he's here."

The professor stood, for a few moments, looking at Sally, the slight smile on his lips expressive of mingled disgust and amusement.

"Well," he observed, at last, "it appears to be one on me. I must have said it. I have a vague recollection of something of the kind, but the recollection is very vague. Do you like him, Sally?"

"Oh, yes." Sally seemed to feel that that was too sweeping. "That is," she added, "I—I like him."

Professor Ladue laughed lightly. Sally laughed, too, but in an embarrassed fashion.

"That is satisfactory. You couldn't qualify it, Sally, could you? Tried hard, didn't you?"

Sally flushed.

"Well," continued the professor, "if you chance to see this Fox Sanderson, or any relative of his, will you convey to him my deep sense of pleasure at his presence? I shall be obliged to Miss Ladue if she will do that."

"I will," said Sally gravely.

Professor Ladue bowed. So far as he was concerned, the interview was closed. So far as Sally was concerned, it was not.

"Well?" asked Sally. "May I bring Henrietta? You haven't answered that question, father."

"Dear me! What an incomprehensible omission! I must be getting old and forgetful. Old and forgetful, Sally. It is a state that we all attain if we do not die first."

"Yes," said Sally, "I suppose so. May I bring Henrietta, father?"

Professor Ladue laughed shortly. "What a persistent child you are, Sally!"

"I have to be," she replied, trying not to show her disappointment. "I suppose you mean that you don't want me to bring Henrietta. Well, I won't. Perhaps I may come in some day and hear about the lizard."

He did what he had not expected to do. "Oh, bring her, by all means," he cried, with an assumed cheerfulness which would not have deceived you or me. It did not deceive Sally. "Bring her." He waved his hand inclusively. "Bring Henrietta and Margaret Savage and any others you can think of. Bring them all. I shall be pleased—honored." And again he bowed.

Sally was just opening the door. "Margaret Savage would not be interested," she said in a low voice, without turning her head, "and there aren't—"

"Sally," the professor interrupted in cold exasperation, "will you be good enough to project in my direction, what voice you think it best to use, when you speak to me? Will you be so kind? I do not believe that I am growing deaf, but I don't hear you."

Sally turned toward him. "Yes, father, I beg your pardon. I said that Margaret Savage wouldn't be interested," she repeated