The Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of To-day

by Harriet Stark

THE BIRTH OF THE BUTTERFLY.

(From the Autobiography of Helen Winship.)

CHAPTER I

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT

No. 2 Union Square, December 14.

I am the most beautiful woman in the world!

I feel like a daughter of the gods. Bewildered, amazed, at times incredulous of my good fortune—but happy, happy, happy!

There is no joy in heaven or earth like the joy of being beautiful—incomparably beautiful! It's such a never-ending surprise and delight that I come out of my musings with a start, a dozen times a day, and shudder to think: "What if it were only a dream!"

Happy? I have no faith in the old wives' fables that we are most miserable when we get what we want. It isn't true that the weak and poor are to be envied beyond the powerful. Ask the fortunate if they would change! I wouldn't; not for the Klondike?

I'm so happy! I want to take into my confidence the whole world of women. I want them to know how the gift was gained that they are some day to share. I want them to know that there are still good fairies in the world; and how I was fated to meet one, how he waved his wand over me and how my imperfections fled. Every woman will read the story of my life with rapt attention because of the Secret. I shall tell that last of all. Now it's my own.

Is it true that I have longed for beauty more passionately than most women; or is it only that I know myself, not the others? I can remember the time, away back, when the longing began—when I was——

Incredible! Was I ever an ugly little girl, careless of my appearance, happiest in a torn and dirty dress; and homely, homely, homely? Oh, miracle! The miracle!

They say all girls begin life thus heedless of beauty; but none get far along the road before they meet the need of it. So it was with me; and now I love to recall every pitiful detail of the beginning of the Quest of Beauty, the funny little tragedy of childhood that changed the current of my life—and of your lives, all you women who read.

It was one day after school, in the old life that has closed forever—after the prairie school, dull, sordid, uninspiring, away in the West—that a playmate, Billy Reynolds, was testing upon me his powers of teasing. I remember the grin of pleasure in his cruelty that wrinkled his round, red face when at last he found the dart that stung. His words—ah, they are no dream! They were the awakening, the prelude of to-day.

"Janey's prettier'n what you be," he said; and of a sudden I knew that it was true, and felt that the knowledge nearly broke my heart.

But could there be any doubt of the proper reply?

"Huh!" I said, shrugging my lean shoulders. "I don't care!"

The day before it would have been true, but that day it was a lie. I did care; the brave words blistered my throat, sudden tears burned my eyeballs, and to hide them I turned my back upon my tormentor.

It was not that I was jealous. I cared no more for Billy than for a dozen other playmates. It was just the fact that hurt. I was homely! Not that the idea was new to me, either. Dear me, no! Why, from my earliest years I had been accustomed to think of myself as plain, and had not cared. My earliest recollection, almost, is of two women who one day talked about me in my presence, not thinking that I would understand.

"Ain't she humbly?" said one.

"Dretful! It's a pity. Looks means so much more to a gal."

"But she's smart."

By these words—you can see that I was young—I was exalted, not cast down. And for five years, remembering them, I had been proud of being "smart." But now, in the moment of revelation, the law of sex was laid upon me, and the thought failed to bring its accustomed comfort. Smart? Perhaps. But—homely!

With feet as light as my heart was heavy because of Billy's taunt, I flew home and ran up to my room. I had there a tiny mirror, about two-thirds of which had fallen from its frame. I may before that day have taken in it brief, uncritical glimpses at my face, but they had not led to self-analysis. Now, with beating heart and solemn earnestness, I balanced a chair against the door—there was no lock—and looked long and unlovingly at my reflected image.

I saw many freckles, a nose too small, ears too big, honest eyes, hair which was an undecided brown; in short, an ordinary wind-blown little prairie girl. Perhaps I was not so ill-looking, nor Janey so pretty, as Billy affected to think, but no such comforting conclusion then came to me. Sorrow fronted me in the glass.

The broken mirror gave no hint of my figure, but I know that I was lean and angular, with long legs forever thrusting themselves below the hem of my dress; the kind of girl for whose growth careful mothers provide skirts with tucks that can be let out to keep pace with their increasing stature.

Yes, I was homely! I could not dispute the evidence of the bit of shivered glass.

My heart was swelling with grief as I slowly went down stairs, where my mother was getting supper for the hired men. I think it must have been early spring, for prairie schools need not expect boy pupils in seeding time; I know that the door was open and the weather warm.

"Ma," I said as I entered the dining room, "will I ever be pretty?"

"Sakes alive! What will the child think of next?"

"But will I, Ma?"

"'Han'some is as han'some does,' you know, Nelly," my mother responded, as she set on the table two big plates piled high with slices of bread. Then she went into the buttery and brought out a loaf of temperance cake, a plate of doughnuts and a great dish of butter.

"Oh, come now, Ma; please tell me," I wheedled, not content with a proverb.

"Why, Nelly, I don't know; the' ain't nobody does know. I was well-favoured at your age, but your pa wan't much on looks. But Pa had a sister who was reel good-lookin', an' some says you've got her eyes. Maybe you'll take after her. But land! You can't never tell. I've seen some of the prettiest babies grow up peaked and pindlin' an' plain as a potato; whilst, on the other hand, reel homely children sometimes come up an' fill out rosy-cheeked an' bright-eyed as you please. There was my half-sister Rachel, now, eight years younger'n me. I remember well how folks said she was the homeliest baby they ever see; an' she grew up homely, too, just a lean critter with big eyes an' tousled hair; but she got to be reel pretty 'fore she died. Then there's my own Cousin Francie, she that married Tim'thy Baker an' went to New York to live. She's a bright, nice-lookin' woman, almost han'some; an' her little girls are, too; about your age they be. An'—"

I suppose the lonely prairie life had made Ma fond of talking, without much regard for her audience. Often have I heard her for an hour at a time steadily whispering away to herself. Now she had forgotten her only auditor, a wide-eyed little girl, and was fairly launched upon monologue, the subject answering as well as another her imperious need.

"Which of Pa's sisters, Ma?" I asked, interrupting.

"W'ich of his sisters—w'at? Wat you talkin' 'bout now?"

"Which is the good-looking one?"

"Oh, your Aunt Em'ly, o' course. Nobody ain't ever accused S'renie or Keren-Happuch o' bein' sinfully beautiful, fur's I know."

My Aunt Em'ly was invested for me with a new interest. Perhaps some day I might take after her and grow equally well-favoured. I did not remember having noticed that she was beautiful, and resolved to study her at the first opportunity.

CHAPTER II.

A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON.

Going to church was a good old New England custom that in our family had borne transplanting to the West. Sunday was almost the pleasantest day in the week to me—not elbowing school-less Saturday from its throne; not of course even comparing with the bliss of Friday just after school, but easily surpassing the procession of four dull, dreaded, droning days the ogre Monday led.

The beauty and fragrance of the summer Sabbath began in the early morning, when I went out into the garden, before putting on my Sunday frock, and picked a quantity of the old-fashioned flowers that grew there. I arranged them in two flat bouquets, with tall gladiolus stalks behind and smaller growths ranging down in front so that they might see and be seen, peeping over each other's heads, when placed against the wall in church.

Then after the great toilet-making of the week we were off. The drive over the prairie in the democrat wagon behind our smartest pair of plough horses was a pleasure that never grew tame from repetition. Arriving at the church, I would give my bouquets to the old stoop-shouldered sexton and watch him anxiously as he ambled down the aisle with them. Perhaps my flowers—yes, the very flowers that I had dashed the dew from that morning—would be placed on the pulpit itself, not on the table below, nor yet about the gallery where sat the choir. Then indeed I felt honoured. But wherever they might be, I could watch them all through the services, perhaps catch their fragrance from some favouring breeze, and feel that they were own folks from home.

Even sermon time did not seem long. After I had noted the text to prepare for catechism at home, I was free to dream as I chose until the rustle of relief at the close of the speaking. And the droning of bees and buzzing of flies, or the sudden clamour of a hen somewhere near would come floating in through the open window, and the odour of the flowers and the twigs of the "ellum" tree tapping at the pane helped to make the little church a haven of restfulness.

But on the Sunday following my awakening I had no care for sounds outside, no eyes for my bouquets, though they stood at either hand of the pulpit; I got permission to sit in Aunt Keren's pew, where I could see Aunt Em'ly's face; and all through the sermon I studied it with big, round eyes.

Yes, and with sorrow growing leaden in my heart.

For I was not old enough to see in her face what it had been, nor to appreciate the fine profile that remained. Hers was not the pink-and-white of rosy girlhood, the only beauty I could understand; and wherein her toil-set features differed from those of the other drudging farmers' wives or the shut-in women of the little village, I could not see.

A lump rose in my throat; this wrinkled and aging person was the beautiful woman I might take after!

I'm afraid I returned from church that day without the consolations of religion.

There followed an anxious time of experimenting. Some one had told me that lemon juice would exorcise freckles, and surreptitiously I tried it. How my face smarted after the heroic treatment, and how red and inflamed it looked! But then in a little while back came the freckles again and they stayed, too, until—but how they went, I am to tell you.

I wheedled from mother the privilege of daily wearing my coral beads—the ones my cousins Milly and Ethel Baker had sent me from New York—and had an angry fit of crying when one day, while we children were racing for the schoolhouse door at the end of recess, the string broke and they were nearly all trampled upon before I could pick them up.

Youth is buoyant. Next I begged the sheet lead linings of tea chests from the man who kept the general store, and cut them into little strips that I folded into hair-curlers, covering them with paper so that the edges should not cut. I would go to sleep at night with my short, dampened hair twisted around these contrivances, and in the morning comb it out and admire it as it stood about my head in a bushy mass, like the Circassian girl's at the circus.

Thus beautified, I happened one day to meet our white-headed old pastor! How he stared!

"Stand still a minute, Nelly, child, and let's look at you," he commanded. "Why, what have you been doing to yourself?"

The good man's accent wasn't admiring; sadly I realised the failure of my attempt to compel beauty. When I reached home I sternly soaked the curl out of my hair, brushed it flat and braided it into two exceedingly tight pig-tails. Ah, me! It's easy—afterwards—to laugh at the silent sorrows of childhood, bravely endured alone. At least, it's easy for me, now!

I began to worry Ma about my clothes. I grew ashamed of red-and-black, pin-checked woollen frocks, and sighed for prettier things. One of the girls wore at a Sunday school concert a gray and blue dress with many small ruffles, that seemed to me as elegant as a duchess could want. The children whispered that it had cost $20, and I wondered if I should ever again see raiment so wonderful. I knew that it was useless to ask for such a dress for myself; I should be told that I was not old enough for fine feathers.

It was our Sabbath day custom to pass directly from the church services to those of Sunday school, and drive home after these. One stormy day I was the only scholar in my class, and when we had finished the Bible Lesson Leaflets and I was watching the long rows of bobbing heads, flaxen and dark, in the pews full of restless, wriggling children, I turned to the teacher with a question that I had long been meditating.

"Miss Coleman," I began desperately, "ain't there any way to get pretty?"

"I wish there were a way and I knew it," she responded with a smile. "But you should say 'isn't,' you know."

"Oh, but you are pretty," I cried, not with the intent of compliment, but as merely stating a fact.

I do not now think that it was a fact. Miss Coleman's features were irregular, her nose prominent, her forehead too high; but she had a fair, pure complexion and fine eyes, and somehow reminded me of the calla lilly that Ma was always fussing about in our sitting room.

And she was good and wise. I have often thought how different my life might have been if her orbit had not briefly threaded mine. If I had asked that question of some simpering girl a few years older than I—the average Sunday school teacher—she would have replied, from under the flower-burdened hat that had cost her so much thought, that all flesh was grass and beauty vain; and I should have known that she didn't believe it.

"For that matter," said Miss Coleman, after a little pause in which she seemed considering her words with more than usual care, "there are ways of growing beautiful; and, so far as she can, it is a woman's duty to seek them; would you like to know how?"

A duty to be beautiful! Here was novel doctrine.

I gazed with eyes and mouth wide open as she continued: "For one with good lungs and a sound body, the first law of beauty is to be healthy; and health is not just luck. To get it and keep it seek constant exercise in the open air. Middle-aged women lose their looks because they stay in too constantly; when they were girls and played out-of-doors they had roses in their cheeks. Most handsome women of sixty are those who go among people and keep their interest in what is going on.

"And the second law is intelligence. For thinking gives the eyes expression. A foolish girl may be fair and rosy, yet far from beautiful. Many of the world's famous beauties have suffered serious blemishes; but they have all had wit or spirit to give their faces charm. You have planted flowers?"

"I guess so; yes'm." I didn't see the connection.

"You know then that if you kept digging them to see if they had sprouted, they never would sprout. So it is not well to think too much about growth in beauty. Don't be impatient. It is a work of years. But the method is certain, within limits. I should think that by exercise for the body and study for the mind you might easily become a beautiful woman. Another thing; don't slouch."

I sat up straight as a grenadier, my shoulders absurdly stiff.

"No, nevermind your shoulders," said Miss Coleman, smiling; "they'll take care of themselves if you keep your head right. Practise sitting and standing erect. And never wear a corset. If the Almighty had meant woman to be corset-shaped, He'd have made her so."

The superintendent's bell, tinkling for the closing hymn, and the rustle of the leaves of singing books broke in upon our talk; for the first time I failed to welcome the interruption.

"Why, I've delivered quite a lecture upon beauty," Miss Coleman said. "Now just a word more. Try to remember that by making yourself a good and wise woman you will also make yourself more beautiful."

"Oh, I'll remember; I will!" I cried.

And I have done so! Every word! And if Miss Coleman could only see me now! How could I forget?

I was silent all the way home. At the dinner table, as my father was tucking his napkin under his chin, he said: "Well, Nelly, w'at was Mr. Stoddard's text?"

"I—I guess it was something about the children of Israel."

"Yes, prob'ly it was something about 'em," Pa assented with a chuckle.

But Ma spoke more sharply: "I guess you won't get let to set in Aunt Keren-Happuch's pew again right away, Helen 'Lizy." For before my lesson I had once more been studying Aunt Em'ly's face.

I didn't mind the prohibition the least bit. I had a new idea and a new hope. The idea was exaggerated, the hope vain.—Was vain? Ah, it has been more than realised, as you shall hear; realised in a way that amazes me the more, the more I think upon it. Realised as yours shall be, some day, through me!

Realised! Great Heavens! It is a miracle!

CHAPTER III.

THE QUEST OF KNOWLEDGE.

Our district schoolhouse was a shadeless, unpainted box. Within, whittled desks, staring windows and broken plastering made it a fit prison for the boys, whose rough ways were proof of the refining influence of their daily intercourse with the hired men. I wonder such places are tolerated. What a contrast to Barnard's white and gold!

John Burke was our teacher the following winter. He was only seventeen then, but already tall and well grown, in appearance quite a man. He was a student working his way to an education, and his example was a help to me. For I no longer hated lessons. Miss Coleman's talk had filled me with such zeal for knowledge that I became, before the term was over, the phenomenon of the school. Mr. Burke boarded at our house and he would bring home shining tales of my prowess, and often I would listen open-mouthed as we sat about the table at night and he told stories of the State University and the students and the merry life they led.

Every one was amazed at my industry. I played as heartily as I worked, but I studied with a will, too, and passed a score of mates. That was easy enough, for home study was never dreamed of by most of them, and leisure hours in school were passed in marking "tit-tat-to" upon slates or eating apples under the friendly shelter of the desks.

At the end of the term I received a prize—a highly coloured print of "Washington Crossing the Delaware," which Pa and Ma used long after to bring out and exhibit with pride. It is still somewhere in the old house—hung up in Ma's bedroom, I think, along with the blue-and-tinseled crown, marked "Charity" in gilt letters across the front, which I wore in the exciting dialogue of "Faith, Hope and Charity" at a Sunday school exhibition.

But more than any prize I valued the help and friendship of John Burke and the consciousness that he considered me his most promising pupil. Upborne by new ideals, I resolved to study through the vacation that followed, and to my surprise this was not an infliction but a pleasure, now that I was my own task-mistress.

Next term the "girl teacher"—for economy's sake we had them in summer when there were no big boys to thrash—was astonished at my industry and wisdom, and as I could see, a little afraid of them. At the end of the first week I went home bursting with an idea that in secret I had long cherished. Aunt Keren was at tea, I remember, and the talk fell upon my work in school, giving me my opportunity.

"Who'd a thought a mischeevious little tyke like her would ha' turned out a first-rate learner, after all?" queried Auntie, beaming upon me good-naturedly from behind her gold-bowed spectacles. "I al'ays tol' ye, Ezry, ye'd be proud o' her some day."

"I guess Sue Arkwright's a famous good teacher; that's one thing," said Ma, amiably. "Sis never done near so well before; at least, not till last term."

"I never thought Sue was anythin' remarkable," Pa broke in. "How is that, Sis? Is she a good teacher?"

"No, she ain't," I responded, with quickened beating of the heart. Criticism of teachers was admissible in my code of ethics, but justification must follow; there must be proof—or reproof.

"What's that?" said Pa, looking at me curiously. "Ever ketch her in a mistake?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Bring the book."

I ran and fetched a well-thumbed book from the sewing machine and turned to the definitions of familiar foreign words.

"There," said I, spreading the speller flat on the table and pointing with my finger. "French word for 'Mister.' Teacher called it 'Monshure,' just as they all do. But that's wrong. To-day I showed her how it is. See, the book says it's pronounced 'm-o-s-s-e-r' and that little mark means an accent on the last syllable and it's 'long e.' 'Mosseer' is right. But when I showed it to teacher, she looked at it awhile, and then she wrinkled up her eye-brows, and whispered it once or twice and said: 'Oh, yes; "mosser."' And she made us call it 'mosser' all the rest of the day, too," I ended triumphantly.

"Why, o' course that ain't right; 'mosser' ain't it!" volunteered one of the hired men, who had lingered to hear the discussion. "I've heerd that word a thousan' times; right way seems like 'M'shoo.' Shucks! Can't get my tongue 'round it, nohow."

"Yes, I know", said Pa "you go call Frenchy."

Joe Lavigne, summoned from the barn, came, followed by all the rest, curious to see what was wanted—a rough, kindly gang of men in blue overalls and big, clumping boots.

"Joe," said Pa; "you say 'Mister' in French."

"Ya-a-as, M'sieu' Weensheep, so I call heem: M'sieu'; M'sieu'; M'sieu'."

Very carefully Frenchy pronounced the clipped word.

"That's all, Joe; I s'pose book French is a good deal diff'rent from ord'nary Kanuck. 'Mosseer' is right anyhow, for the book says so. Teacher had ought to know enough to go by the book, I sh' think."

"Tain't her fault, Pa," I said, relenting. "She never went to any good school. I want to go somewhere where the teachers know a real lot; not just a little bit more than me. I want to go"—I paused to gain courage—"I want to go to the University, like—like Mr. Burke."

"The State University!" Pa repeated, in a tone of awe; "Thunder! Don't believe we could manage that, Sis."

"W'y, yes, y'can, too, Ezry," Aunt Keren argued, "seems to me you're forehanded enough, to do for an only child. 'Tain't 's if you was like me 'n' Ab., with our four chunies."

"She'd have to go to an academy first to get fitten for it," said Ma. "She couldn't go to the Univers'ty for three or four years yet."

"Of course not," I answered; "but you might write to Mr. Burke to send me a catalogue to find out how much I'd have to know to get taken in. Then I could study at home till I got pretty near ready, and then take a year at the Academy."

The words flowed easily, eagerly; I had so often gone over the plan.

"Good idee," said Pa, nodding his head, relieved to find that I wasn't seeking to leave home at once; and so it was arranged.

Isn't it wonderful? Plain and bald and homely the house, unpretending the surroundings, simple and primitive the life, that sent forth the world's first beautiful woman, the Woman of the Secret! I have tried to set it all down exactly as it happened—the quaint, old-fashioned dialect, the homely ways, the bearded, booted men. For this place, just as it was, was the birthplace of the new glory; out of this homely simplicity dawned the new era of beauty that is to make the whole world glad.

A catalogue was sent for, books were bought and I set to work unaided, though Mr. Stoddard took an interest in my studies and often helped me out of difficulties. I chose the classical course, undeterred by parental demonstrations of the "plum uselessness" of Latin and Greek; I had for the choice no better reason than that it was more difficult. I no longer went to the little red schoolhouse.

All this time I had almost forgotten Billy, to whom I owed such a debt of gratitude for sending me upon the Quest. Once I met him on the road.

"Ain't ye never comin' to school no more?" he queried.

"No, I am never going again; I am preparing for the State University; I shall take a classical course," I answered with hauteur, looking down upon him as I spoke. Only that morning Ma had let out another tuck in my gown.

"I'm aw'fly sorry," Billy murmured with a foolish, embarrassed grin. "Guess I'll walk along of ye, if ye don't care."

My triumph found me cold. The sting of Billy's words yet rankled, and perhaps I was not so grateful to the little wretch as he deserved. It was about a quarter of a mile to our house; we walked the distance in unbroken silence. Once there, Billy rallied.

"Good-by, Miss Winship," he said, holding open the gate for me. It was the first time that any one had addressed me by that grown-up title.

"Good-by, Billy."

And that was the end of the beginning of the Quest.

In blizzard time and through the fierce heat of summer I toiled at self-set tasks in our ugly, comfortable home. During the blessed intervals when we could induce "girl help" to stay with us I had scarcely any housework to do. Fairly regular exercise came to be a habit and I worried admiring relatives into thinking me a candidate for an early grave by taking a cold bath every morning. In the end I managed, with a single year in a cheerless boarding house near a village academy, where I studied greedily, devouring my books, to enter the State University with a scholarship to my credit.

I took half the examination in Spring and read extra Virgil and Ovid all summer. Then in August, when the long vacation was nearly over, came the village dressmaker. Ma had promised me two new dresses, and I would sit hemming towels or poring over Greek and Roman history while they turned the leaves of fashion magazines and discussed materials and trimmings.

I secretly hoped for a silk, but Mother, to whom I suppose I am even now—now!—a little girl, vetoed that as too showy, and the dressmaker added her plea for good, durable things. The choice fell upon a golf suiting for school and a black cashmere for church.

I begged hard to have the cashmere touch the ground, but both women smiled at the folly of the child who forgot the many re-bindings a long skirt would call for. There was a comic side to my disappointment, for I guessed that the widow Trask could not make the designs I coveted, nor anything of which she could not buy a paper pattern.

But when I went up to the University and became entitled to join in the cry:—

S!——U!
We're——a——few!
S!——T!——A—T—E!
U!——ni——ver—si—tee!
Wow!——Wow!——Wow!

—I found that I compared favourably enough with my mates. Dress played little part in every day college life, and for such occasions as socials or Friday night debating society I soon learned from upper class girls to mitigate ugly gowns with pretty ribbons. And I congratulated myself upon the fact that I was not by any means the plainest girl in my class. My face was hopeless, but my hard-won fight for an erect posture had given me a bearing that seemed almost distinguished. And—well, even my face wasn't so bad, I thought then!

We were a jolly set; most of us poor as church mice, and caring little. Making rather a boast of it, indeed. John Burke's roommate, Jim Reeder, cooked his own meals—mostly oatmeal—in his room and lived on less than a dollar a week until fairly starved. I suppose they'll call him "old Hoss" to his dying day. Until his mother moved to town, John was almost as ill-fed. He was just completing his law course when I was a Freshman, and used to make brave jests at poverty, even after his admission to the bar.

Of course I was glad to meet him again, and, though I was puzzled just at first, to see how little older than I my former teacher was, yet afterwards—why, I haven't answered his last—I don't know how many letters; I simply must remember to write to him!

I think the best part of the teaching wasn't in the books. Some of the students were queer and uncouth when they came, the boys eating with their knives in the fashion of the farm; some of the brightest girls in ill-fitting clothes—perfect guys they'd be thought in the city. But there were others of quite different manner, and from them and from professors who had seen the world, we learned a little—a very little—of its ways. And perhaps we were not unfavourable specimens of young republicanism, with our merry, hopeful outlook upon life, and our future governors and senators all in the raw—yes, and our countesses and vice-reines!

CHAPTER IV

GIRL BACHELOR AND BIOLOGIST

Merrily flew the years and almost before I realised it came graduation. In the leafy dark of the village street, in the calm of a perfect June night, John Burke told me that he loved me, and I plighted my troth to him.

We laid plans as we bade each other good-by, to meet again—perhaps—in New York in the fall; and even that little separation seemed so long. We did not guess that the weeks would grow to months, and—oh, dear, what will he think of me when he gets here? And what—now—shall I say to him?

Father for the first time visited college to see me graduate. Between his pride in my standing at the head of my class and his discomfort in a starched collar, he was a prey to conflicting emotions all Commencement week, and heaved a great sigh of relief when at last the train that bore us home pulled out of the station. But as we approached our own he again grew uneasy, and kept peering out at the car window as if on the watch for something.

At length we descended in front of the long yellow box we called the "deepo." And there was Joe Lavigne to meet us, not with the democrat wagon, but with a very new and shiny top buggy.

When we reached the farmhouse, I saw proofs of a loving conspiracy. The addition of a broad veranda and a big bay window, with the softening effect of the young trees that had grown up all around the place, made it look much more homelike than the bare box that had sheltered my childhood. A new hammock swung between two of the trees.

Mother met me at the door with more emotion than I had ever before detected upon her thin face. Then I saw that the dear people had been at work within the house as well. Cosey corners and modern wall paper and fittings such as I had seen at the professors' houses and had described at home to auditors apparently slightly interested, had been remembered and treasured up and here attempted, to make my homecoming a festivity. The house had been transformed, and if not always in the best of taste, love shone through the blunders.

"Oh, Father," I cried, "now I am surprised! How much wheat it must have cost!"

"Well, I guess we can stand it," he said, grimly pleased and proud and anxious all at once. "We wanted to make it kind o' pleasant for ye, Sis; an'—an' homelike."

There was something so soft and tremulous in his voice that it struck me with a great pang of contrition that I had left him for so many years, that already I was eager to go away again—to the great city where John was soon to be.

I turned quickly away and went from room to room admiring the changes, but after supper, when we were all gathered about the sitting room table, Father returned to the subject most upon his mind. He had seen me with John during Commencement week, and must have understood matters.

"Ready t' stay hum now, I s'pose, ain't ye?" he asked with a note in his voice of cheery assurance that perhaps he did not feel, tilting back and forth in his old-fashioned rocking chair, as I had so often seen him do, with closed eyes and open mouth, his face steeled against expression. And the slow jog, jog, jog of the chair reminded me how his silent evening vigils had worn away the rockers until they stood flat upon the floor, making every movement a clacking complaint.

To-night—to-night, he is rocking just the same, in silence, in loneliness. Poor, dear Pa!

"I'm glad to get home, of course," I said; "but—I wanted to speak with you. But not to-night."

"Why, ye're through school."

"Yes, but I—I wish I could go on studying; if I may."

The words tripped over each other in my embarrassment.

The jog, jog of the chair paused suddenly, leaving for a moment only the ticking of the clock to break the silence.

"Not goin' to put up 'ith us an' stay right alon', eh?" he asked; and rocked twice, then stopped again, in suspense for the answer.

"Why, Father," I stammered, "of course I don't want to do anything unless you're willing, but I had thought I'd like—I did want to go and study in the city—I think—or somewhere."

"Dear me! Dear me!" he mused, his voice very low and even; "an' you just through the University; 'way up to the top, too. Can't ye—seems as if ye better stop alon' of us an' study home, same's you used to? Mebbe—mebbe 'twon't be good for ye, studyin' so much."

"Of course I can, you dear old Dad," I cried; and horribly guilty I felt as I looked at the kindly, weather-beaten face. "I shall do just whatever you say. But oh, I wish I could go to the city! Don't you suppose I could?"

"Chicago, mebbe?"

"I had thought of a post-graduate course in Barnard College—that's in New York, you know."

Father knew John's plans. I blushed hotly. In the pause that followed I knew that he was thinking of a well-thumbed map in my old school geography; of the long, long journey to Chicago, and the thousand weary miles that stretched beyond. Hastily I went on:—

"But I know how you have saved for me and worked for me and pinched; and I'd be ashamed to be a burden upon you any longer; I can teach to get money to go on with."

"No;" said Pa, sitting up straight and striking the arm of the chair with his clenched fist a blow that gave some hint of the excitement that moved him. "Guess a child o' mine don't need to teach an' get all dragged out, alon' of a passel o' wild children! No, no, Helen 'Lizy;" he added more softly, sinking back into the old attitude and once more closing his eyes; "if the's so much more to learn, an' you want to go ahead an' learn it, just you go an' get it done with. I'm right sorry to have ye go so fur away; I did think—but it's nat'ral, child; it's nat'ral. I s'pose John Burke's goin' to the city, too, and you kinder—I s'pose young folks likes to be together."

"I—I—we have talked of it."

Talked about it! John and I had talked of nothing else for a week. I sat very still, my eyes on the carpet.

"Guess John Burke'll have all he cares to do for one while, gittin' started in the law office, 'thout runnin' round with Nelly," said Ma. "Ye seem bent on spoilin' the child, Ezry. Al'ays the same way, ever sin' she's a little girl."

Her lips were compressed, the outward symbol of a life of silent hours and self restraint.

"There, there, Ma," said Father, jogging his chair again. "Don't ye worry no more 'bout that. What's ourn is hern in the long run, an' she may as well have some of it now when she wants it, an' it'll do her some good. I s'pose Frank Baker—she that's your mother's cousin an' married Tim'thy Baker an's gone to New York to live—I s'pose she might look after you; but it's a long way off, New York—seems like a dretful long way off. What ye goin' to learn, Sis, if ye should go t' the city?"

"Well, I was good in chemistry; Prof. Meade advised me—I might study medicine; I don't know. And I want to know more about books and pictures and the things that people talk about, out in the world, though I can hardly call that a study, I suppose."

The words somehow disappointed me when uttered. They didn't sound convincing. Such pursuits seemed less serious, there in the old farm-house that spoke of so much painful toil, than when John and I had discussed them on the sunny campus.

"I—I don't know yet, just what to do; there's all summer to plan; but I want—somehow—to make the very most and the best of myself," I added earnestly.

It was true, and the nearest I could come to the exact truth; that love urged me yet more eagerly upon the Quest, and that with all my heart I longed to become a wise and brilliant woman, for John's sake, and as a step towards beauty, according to Miss Coleman's words.

"I don't hold with women bein' doctors," said Ma, as she energetically knitted into the middle of her needle before looking up. "I don't know what we're comin' to, these days."

"There, there, Ma, I don't know why women shouldn't be doctors, if they want to. They make better nusses'n men. Mebbe—mebbe Sis'll be gettin' married some day, an' I tell ye a little doctorin' know-how is mighty handy in a house. A doctor an' a lawyer, now, would be a gret team, right in the fambly, like. Well, Sis, we'll see; we'll see."

I knew that the matter was practically settled; and there was little sleep for me, or for any one, that night in the old farm-house.

I stayed at home until September, and then one morning Father drove me again to the little yellow station whose door opens wide upon all the world.

"Well, good-by, Helen 'Lizy," he said.

"Good-by, Father."

For weeks I had been eager to be off, but as the train began to move and I looked back at his patient figure—he made no more show of his deep emotion than if the parting were for a day—a big lump rose in my throat at leaving him and Ma—old before their time with toil and privation and planning and striving for me.

I knew how lonely it would be in the sitting room that night without me. Father with closed eyes jogging away in his chair, Mother bolt upright and thin and prim, forever at her knitting or sewing; no sound but the chair and the ticking clock upon the shelf—that night and every night. And the early bedtime and the early morning and the long, long day—what a contrast to this!

I pressed my face against the window, but a rush of tears blurred all the dear, familiar landmarks—Barzillai Foote's red barn, the grain elevator at the siding, the Hartsville road trailing off over the prairie; I would have given worlds to be in the top buggy again, moving homeward, instead of going swiftly out, out, alone, into the world. Three months ago! I did not dream what miracles were in store!

And so one day I reached the New York I had dreamed about. It wasn't as a shrine of learning that it appealed to me, altogether; but as a wonderful place, beautiful, glittering, feverish with motion, abounding with gayety, thronged with people, bubbling with life.

How it fascinated me!

Just at first of course I was lonely because John had not yet come, and Mrs. Baker, mother's cousin, was away from home. But I soon made friends with my cousins, Ethel and Milly; shy, nice girls, twins and precisely alike, except, that Ethel is slightly lame. And at my boarding place I made the acquaintance of an art student from Cincinnati three or four years older than I, who proposed that we should become girl bachelors and live in a studio.

"But I didn't know people ever lived in studios," I objected.

"Oh, you dear goose!" said Kathryn Reid—it's really her name, though of course I call her Kitty—"Live in studios? Bless you, child, everybody does it. And I know a beyewtiful studio that we can have cheap, because we're such superior young persons; also because it's ever so many stories up and no elevator. Can you cook a little? Can you wash dishes, or not mind if they're not washed? You got the blessed bump of disorder? You good at don't care? Then live with me and be my love. You've no idea the money you'll save."

That's just the way Kitty talks. You can't induce her to be serious for three minutes at a time—I suppose it's the artistic temperament. But she's shrewd; studio life is better than the kind of boarding house we escaped from. And so jolly! Kitty has more chums than I, of course. Her brother, Prosper K., and Caroline Bryant—"Cadge," for short—a queer girl who does newspaper work and sings like an angel, are the ones I see most. Though for that matter the city's full of girls from the country, earning or partly earning their living. One will be studying music, another art; one "boning" at medicine, another selling stories to the newspapers and living in hope of one day writing a great American play or novel. Such nice girls—so brave and jolly.

My new home is in a building on Union Square. And I like it—the place, the people, the glimpse of the wintry Square, the roaring city life under my window. I'm sure I don't want a quiet room. It's such fun, just like playing house, to be by ourselves and independent of all the world. I think it's an intoxicating thing, just at first, for a girl to be really independent. Boys think nothing of it; it's what they've been brought up to expect.

Well, I tore myself away from the dear place to get at my work. I really mean to work hard and justify Father's sacrifices. I tried to take singing lessons, because John is so fond of music, but there I made a dismal failure; I had, three months ago, neither ear nor voice. The day before the fall semester opened, I climbed the long hill to Barnard College, fell in love with its gleaming white and gold, so different from the State University, and arranged for a course in biology. Then I began physical culture in a gymnasium.

I couldn't have made a queerer or a better combination. For it was in the Barnard laboratory that I met Prof. Darmstetter; and it was my bearing, my unending practice of the West Point setting-up drill, my Delsarte, my "harmonic poise" and evident health that drew his attention to me.

How well I remember the day I made his acquaintance! I had entered the laboratory without knowing what manner of man he was, for all my arrangements about my course had been made with clerks. So it was with genuine surprise that I turned from an inspection of the apparatus to answer when a squeaking voice at my elbow suddenly saluted me:—

"Mees Veenship, not so?"

The owner of the voice was a little old fellow, whose dry, weazened face gave no hint of his years. I guessed that he was probably seventy, though he might as easily be much younger. His skin was parchment-coloured and cross-hatched by a thousand wrinkles and the hair under his skull-cap was as white as snow, but he was as bright of eye and brisk of manner as a youth of twenty.

"Yes, sir," I replied rather awkwardly; "I am Miss Winship."

"V'at for you study biology?" was his surprising query, uttered in a tone between a squeak, a snarl, and a grunt.

"Because I wish to learn," I replied, after a moment's hesitation.

"No, mine vriendt," he snapped, "you do not vish to learn. You care not'ing for science. You are romantic, you grope, you change, you are unformed. In a vord, you are a voman. You haf industry—mine Gott, yes!—and you vill learn of me because I am a man and because you haf not'ing better to do. And by-and-by behold Prince Charming—and you vill meet and marry and forget science. V'at for I vaste my time vit' you? Eh? I do not know any voman who becomes a great scientist. Not so? T'ose young vomen, t'ey vaste t'eir time and t'ey vaste mine."

I followed his gesture and saw two or three nice-looking girls in big checked aprons amiably grinning at me. One of them by a solemn wink conveyed the hint that such hazing of new arrivals was not unusual.

"You're paid to waste your time on me," I answered hotly. "I'm here to work and to listen to you; my plans are my own affair, and if I never become a great scientist, I don't see what difference that makes to you."

The meekest looking girl gasped, wide eyed at my temerity. But Prof. Darmstetter's shrewd little eyes twinkled with reassuring good-nature.

"Vell, vell, ve shall see," said he, wagging his head; "maybe I find some use for you. I vatch you. Maybe I find for you some use t'at you don't expect, eh? Ve shall see."

So he walked away, shrugging his shoulders and snapping his fingers and muttering to himself: "Ve shall see; we shall see." And at times throughout the session he chuckled as if he had heard of an excellent joke.

"Good gracious!" I whispered to one of the aproned girls that had watched the encounter—students like myself—"that's an encouraging reception, isn't it?"

"It is," she gravely replied. "We're all jealous of you. You are evidently destined to become Prof. Darmstetter's favourite pupil. I know I cried half the night at the way he greeted me. We were all watching you and you got off easy. Brought an apron? I can lend you one, if you didn't. It's pretty mussy here."

"Thank you," I said, "but really I can't get my mind off Prof. Darmstetter, all in a minute so. What sort of a man is he?"

"Oh, irritating sometimes, but a genius; I suppose his treatment of the girls is a sample of his Early Teutonic ideas of civility. He likes better to teach the Columbia boys—says their work in future years'll do him more credit. But we get used to him and don't mind it, we who were here last year. And he's a great scientist; has a world-wide reputation. He almost lives in the laboratory, here and at Columbia; has no home life or friends or relatives. And oh, it's such a privilege," she said with a sudden change of tone, a schoolmistressly manner, looking upon me more austerely, "to study under such a man. He is a Master."

The Master! She little knew how true was the word! To-morrow, if his secret and mine were known, the world would hail him as its lord. He would be a greater man than has yet lived on the earth. Armies would fight for his favour at the bidding of queens—to get what I have! And to think that chance led me from two thousand miles away, straight to him.

From the first he seemed to take an interest in my doings. He never troubled himself to be polite, but he watched me; always he watched me. I often saw him chuckling and rubbing his hands as if in approbation. But of what? Not of my work, for of that he never took the slightest notice, except when I compelled him to do so by some question.

Then, in quick-flung sentences, he would condense the results of a lifetime of study into phrases filled with meaning, that seemed to cast light upon principles, not facts, and make wonderfully clear the very purpose of Nature. Then indeed he almost forgot that we were women, and talked with kindling enthusiasm of his pet subject. I ceased to wonder that he held such high rank in college.

Under such conditions I made rapid progress. I thoroughly enjoyed the work, though I was not absorbed in it, like most of my companions; but I was quick enough to keep pace with them and to make occasional shrewd suggestions that pleased Prof. Darmstetter not half so much as some sudden display of spirit. He did not seem to care whether I became a student. And always he watched me, for what purpose I could not determine.

My home life—if existence in a studio can be so called—was merry. I was learning the ways of the world. I liked the life. I wrote to John almost every day. The freedom of the den, the change from rote lessons to post-graduate work was pleasant. I was happy.

Happy? I must have dreamed it.

What I thought happiness was nothing to what I now know happiness can be.

CHAPTER V.

THE FINDING OF THE BACILLUS.

If I have dwelt so long upon the laboratory and its master, it is because there the great blessing came that has glorified my whole existence. This was the way of it.

One day I asked Prof. Darmstetter some question about the preparation of a microscopic slide from a bit of a frog's lung.

"Vait!" he snapped, "I vill speak vit' you aftervards."

The girls prophesied the terrible things that were to happen, as they lingered in the cloak room, waiting their turn on the threadbare spot in the rug which a rich girl had bought to cover the threadbare spot in the carpet in front of the mirror. "Now you'll catch it!" the last one said, as she carefully put her hat straight with both hands and ran out of the room.

When I returned to the laboratory Prof. Darmstetter motioned me to a chair and took one opposite, from which he fixed his keen eyes upon my face. Again he seemed weighing, judging, considering me with uncanny, impersonal scrutiny.

"How I despise t'ose vomen!" he said at last, throwing up his hands with an impatient gesture.

Used to his ways, I waited in silence.

"I teach t'ose vomen, yes; but I despise t'em," he added.

"If you do, you ought to be ashamed of it," I retorted hotly. "But I don't believe you really despise them. Such a bright lot of girls—why, some of them are bound to be heard from in science some day!"

"In science? Bah!"

"Why not? There was Mary Somerville and—and—and Caroline Herschel and—well, I can't think of their names all in a minute, but I'm proud to be one of the girls here anyway."

"You are not one of t'em," he cried angrily. "T'ey are life failures. You fancy t'ey are selected examples, but t'ey are not; t'ey are t'e rejected. T'ey stood in t'e market place and no man vanted t'em; or else t'ey are fools as vell as failures and sent t'e men avay. You know me. I am biologist, not true? I hate t'e vord. I am physiologist, student of t'e nature of life—all kinds of life, t'e ocean of life of v'ich man is but a petty incident."

"You were speaking about—"

"Ach, so! Almost t'ou has t'e scientific mind t'at reasons and remembers. I said, I am physiologist. I study v'at Nature is, v'at she means to do. V'en Nature—Gott, if you vant a shorter name—makes a mistake, Gott says: 'Poor material; spoiled in shaping, wrong in t'e vorks; all failures; t'row t'em avay. Ve haf plenty more to go on vit'. You know. You study Nature, also, a little. You know she is law, she is power. To t'e indifidual pitiless, she mofes vit' blind, discompassionate majesty ofer millions of mangled organisms to t'e greater glory of Pan, of Kosmos, of t'e Universe. She vastes life. And how not? Her best vork lives a little v'ile and produces its kind, and t'e vorst does not, and t'ey go down t'e dark vay toget'er and Nature neit'er veeps nor relents Kosmos is greater t'an t'e indifidual and a million years are short.

"T'ose young vomen—Nature meant t'em to desire beauty and dream of lofe. Vat is lofe? It is Nature's machinery. T'ose vomen are old enough for lofe, but t'ey haf it not. So t'ey die. T'ey do not reproduce t'eir kind, not'ing lifing comes from t'em, to go on lifing, on and on, better and better—or vorse, as Nature planned—vit' efery generation. If a voman haf t'e desire of lofe and of beauty, and lofe and beauty come not to her, t'en I pity her, because I am less vise and resolute to vit'hold pity t'an Nature is. Efen if she haf not lofe, but only t'e ambition of power or learning or vealt', I might pity her vit' equal injustice, but I cannot. She vill not let me. She does not know t'at she is a failure. She prides herself upon being so mis-made. She cannot help t'at; neit'er can I help despising her. Such vomen are abnormal, monstrous, in a vord, failures. Let t'em die! You, I t'ink, are not so. You study to bide t'e time. You haf a fine carriage. You comb t'e hair, you haf pretty ribbons, you make t'e body strong and supple, you look in t'e glass and vish for more beauty. Not so?"

"Of course I do," I cried angrily, wondering for the moment if he had lost his senses. It seemed as if he knew little about women for a man who professed to make all life his study. If there were one of his despised girls who lacked the desire of beauty and the dream of love, I am much mistaken. But I came to see afterward that he understood them as well as myself.

"I t'ought so," he mused, his eyes still upon my face. "And you are not too beautiful now; t'ey could not doubt. Yes; I vatch you, I study you. Seldom I make t'e mistake; but it is fery important. So I vatch you a little v'ile longer yet. T'en I say to myelf: 'Here is t'e voman; yes, she is found.'"

And he chuckled and rubbed his lean hands together as I had so often seen him do.

The thought flashed across my mind that this extraordinary man meditated a proposal of marriage, but I dismissed the notion as ridiculous.

The Professor leaned forward and, fixing me with his eye, spoke in a hoarse whisper, tense with excitement:—

"Mees Veenship, I am a biologist; you are a voman, creature of Nature, yearning for perfection after your kind. I—I can gife it you. You can trust me; I am ready. I can gif you your vish, t'e vish of efery normal voman. Science—t'at is I—can make you t'e most beautiful being in t'e vorld!"

Another Sunday school lesson! Miss Coleman and her unforgotten lecture upon beauty flashed upon my mind. But this man was promising me more than she had done, and his every word was measured. What was the mystery? What had he to say to me?

"T'e most beautiful—voman—in t'e vorld," he went on in a slow, cadenced whisper. "Do you vish it?"

His glittering eyes held mine again. No, he was not jesting at my expense; rather he seemed waiting with anxiety for me to make some decision upon which much depended. He was in very serious earnest.

But was ever a question more absurd? Who of women would not wish it? But to get the wish—ah, there's a different matter! I thought he must be crazed by over-study, and I could only sit and stare at him, open-mouthed.

"Listen!" he went on more rapidly, as if to forestall objection. "You are scholar, too, a little. You know how Nature vorks, how men aid her in her business. Man puts t'e mot'er of vinegar into sweet cider and it is vinegar. T'e fermenting germs of t'e brewery chemist go in vit' vater and hops and malt, and t'ere is beer. T'e bacilli of bread, t'e yeast, svarming vit millions of millions of little spores, go into t'e housevife's dough, and it is bad bread; but t'at is not t'e fault of t'e bacilli—mein Gott, no!—for vit' t'e bacilli t'e baker makes goot bread. T'e bacilli of butter, of cheese—you haf studied t'em. T'e experimenter puts t'e germs of good butter into bad cream and it becomes goot. It ripens. It is educated, led in t'e right vay. Tradition vaits for years to ripen vine and make it perfect. Science finds t'e bacillus of t'e perfect vine and puts it in t'e cask of fresh grape juice, and soon t'e vine drinkers of t'e vorld svear it is t'e rare old vintage. T'e bacillus, inconceivably tiny, svarming vit' life, reproducing itself a billion from one, t'at is Nature's tool. And t'e physiologist helps Nature.

"See now," continued Prof. Darmstetter. "I haf a vonderful discofery made. I must experiment vit' it—experimentum in corpore vili! Impossible, for the subject is mankind. I must haf a voman—a voman like you, healt'y, strong, young—all t'e conditions most favourable. She must haf intelligence—t'at is you. She should know somet'ing of biology, and be fery brave, so t'at she may not be frightened, but may understand how t'e vonderful gift is to come to her; and t'at is you. She should not be already beautiful, lest t'e change be less convincing. Yes, you are t'e voman for t'e test. You may become more famous in history fan Cleopatra or Ninon, and outshine t'em and all t'e ot'er beauties t'at efer lifed. Do you vant triumphs? Here t'ey are. Riches? You shall command t'em. Fame? Power? I haf t'em for you. You shall be t'e first. Aftervard, v'en beauty is common as ugliness is now—ah, I do not know. Efen t'en it vill be a blessing. But to be t'e first is fame and all t'e ot'er t'ings I promise you. Now do you trust me? Now do you beliefe me? Vill you make t'e experiment? I haf—let me tell you!—I haf discofered—"

Cautiously Prof. Darmstetter looked about the room. Then he leaned toward me again and added in a hoarse whisper:—

"I haf discofered t'e Bacillus of Beauty."

CHAPTER VI.

THE GREAT CHANGE.

The Bacillus of Beauty! Was the poor man insane? Had much study made of him a monomaniac babbling in a dream of absurdities? Do you wonder that I doubted?

And yet—the thought flashed through my mind that things almost as strange have become the commonplace. I had seen the bones of my own hand through the veiling flesh. I had listened to a voice a thousand miles away. I had seen insects cut in two, grafted together, head of one and tail of another, and living. I had seen many, many marvels which science has wrought along the lines of evolution. And yet—

My dream; my desire always! If it could be!

As I stared open-mouthed at the Professor, he began once more:—

"T'e danger, t'e risk—t'ere is none. You shall see. It is as harmless as—"

"Never mind about that!" I interrupted. "How would I look? Would it change me totally? Would I really be the most beautiful?—"

I stopped, blushing at my own eagerness.

"Absolutely; I svear it. T'e most perfectly beautiful voman in t'e vorld. Mein Gott, yes. How not? Never vas t'ere yet a perfectly beautiful voman. Not von. All have defects; none fulfills t'e ideal. You? You vill look like yourself. I do not miracles. T'e same soul vill look out of your eyes. You vill be perfect, but of your type. T'e same eyes, more bright; t'e same hair, more lustrous and abundant; t'e same complexion clear and pure; t'e same voman as she might have been if t'e race had gone on defeloping a hundred t'ousand years. Look you. Some admire blondes; some brunettes. You are not a Svede to be white, an Italian to be black. You are a brown American. You shall be t'e most beautiful brown American t'at efer lifed. And you shall be first. Vit' you as an example we shall convince t'e vorld. Ve shall accomplish in t'ree generations t'e vork of a hundred t'ousand years of defelopment. How vill humanity bless us if we can raise, out of t'e slums and squalor, out of t'e crooked and blind and degraded, out of t'e hospitals and prisons, t'e spawning dregs of humanity and make t'em perfect! T'ey shall valk t'e eart' like gods, rejoicing in t'eir strengt'. No more failures, no more abnormalities. Nature's vork hastened by science, aeons of veary vaiting and slow efolution forestalled by—by me!"

The little Professor stood erect, his eye fixed on mine, his mien commanding. I had never looked on man so transfigured.

The thought was intoxicating me, driving me wild. I tried to think, to struggle against the tide that was sweeping me away. He seemed to be hypnotizing me with his grave, uncanny eye. I could not move, I could not speak.

"You may ask," Darmstetter went on—though I had not thought of asking—"if t'e beauty vould be hereditable; if as an acquired characteristic, it vould pass to descendants, or, if each child vill not haf to be treated anew. I believe no. It is true t'at acquired traits are not hereditable. T'ere Weissmann is right, v'atefer doubters may say. You know t'e t'eory. T'e blacksmit's muscles are not transmitted to his son t'e clerk; but t'e black hair t'at he got from his fat'er. Only after fery many generations of blacksmit's could a boy be born who vould grow up as a clerk vit' blacksmit' muscles. Efolution shapes t'e vorld, yes; but t'e process is so slow, so slow! So education, modification, must begin afresh vit' each generation and continue forefer. But t'is bacillus does not add ornament to t'e outside. It is not like t'e masseuse, vit' her unguents and kneading. It changes all t'e nature. It is like compressing a million years of education by natural selection into von lifetime. T'at is my t'eory. I do not know—it is not yet tried—but how ot'ervise? Ve but hasten t'e process, as t'e chemist hastens fermentation; Nature constructs, she does not adapt or alter or modify. Ve produce beauty by Nature's own met'od. V'y not hereditary?"

I had made up my mind.

"I'll do it," I cried, no longer able to resist, for the fever of it was in my blood. "You shall make your attempt on me! It can do no harm. I do not see how it can accomplish all you claim, but if you think—it's an experiment full of possibilities—in the interests of science—"

"Interest of humbug!" snapped Prof. Darmstetter, his own sarcastic self again. "You consent because you vant to be beautiful. You care not'ing for science. I can trust you vit' my secret. You need svear no oat's not to reveal it. You vant to be t'e only perfect voman in t'e vorld, and so you shall be, for some time. T'at is right. T'at is your revard."

My cheeks flushed at his injustice. I do care for others. I am not selfish—not more than everybody. And yet—at that moment I feared him and his knowledge; I shuddered at nameless terrors.

Really, I often wonder that I ever had the courage to try. And oh, I am so glad!

Now there is no more fear. Darmstetter is my servant, if I will it. As for his marvellous power, I shall bless it and reverence it all my life. I thank God for letting me know this man. It is too wonderful—too wonderful for words!

The transformation was slow at first. The beginning—such an anxious time. Every day I studied myself and watched and waited for the first sign of growing grace, for the dawning glory. Sometimes I thought I could see the change already under way, and then again the same plain Nelly Winship looked at me from the uncomplimentary glass, and away flew all my hopes.

It was the fading of a little scar on my thumb that first let me know the blessed truth. Now I can scarcely see the place where it was, and I'm sure no one else would notice it. It will never go away entirely. Prof. Darmstetter says I am not proof against wounds and old age, because these are a part of Nature's great plan. But it faded, faded!

And my ears! How I used to hate their prominence! But soon they snuggled closer to my beautiful, beautiful face—and I'm in sure I don't blame them. Every morning when I woke, my shining eyes and the bloom of my cheeks told me I was growing perfect, just as he said I must do. Though I'm not yet quite perfect.

I could sit at my glass and look for hours at my reflected image—if it weren't for Kitty—and—

Why, it seems like another girl, and such a girl as never the world saw before—not me, but Her. Sometimes times I fear Her; but oftener and oftener, as I get used to the lovely vision, I want to hug Her right out of the cold mirror and kiss Her and pat Her smooth cheek like a child's, and put pretty clothes upon Her, as if she were a doll.

And then I try to realise that Her is Me, my own self, and I just cannot believe it! I look from the reflected image to a little photograph of the Helen Winship I once knew, and back again to the glass, and wonder, and thank God, and shudder with awe of my own loveliness. I luxuriate in it, I joy in it, I feel it in every fibre of my being. I am as happy as a queen. I am a queen—or She is.

I am but slightly taller. My form is more rounded and of better mould, but I am still slender. My face is the same face but—how can I express it? A Venus with the—the expression of a Western schoolgirl pursuing special studies in New York, looks at me with Her eyes. They are the eyes of Helen Winship, but larger and fuller orbed and more lustrous, with an appeal that makes me fall in love with myself, as I look. The nose is longer and straighter, the cheeks fuller and fairer, the chin daintier, the neck—ah, well, why shouldn't I be frank? I am beautiful!

And the complexion—still so strange I do not say "my complexion"—clear, fair, rosy all in one, with the fineness and purity of a baby's; it is the most indescribable of all the marvels that glow in my glass. Before, I had the rather sallow, powder-excusing skin of so many Western girls. Now it is perfect. I love to gaze by the hour at my own beauty. I should be renamed Narcissa.

My voice, too, is glorious. I have to school myself not to start at the sound of it when I speak. And most of all, what most impresses me when I try to consider myself fairly—candidly—critically—is the appearance of strength, of health, of unbounded power and deathless youth—as if the blood of generations of athletic girls and free, Viking men ran in my veins. I am, I believe, the only perfectly healthy woman on earth.

Will the gods smite me for my happiness? Are they jealous? Ah, well, I have never lived until now, and if I can stay a little while like this, I shall be satisfied; I shall be ready to die. If only beauty does not vanish as suddenly as it came! If it did, I should kill myself.

There are disadvantages. Such a time as I'm having with my clothes! Money to buy new is not so plenty as I could wish, though the $75 a month that Father sends was more than enough until the change. I'm saving to buy a microscope—a better one than those loaned to students at the laboratory; so I have to let out and contrive—I who so hate a needle!

And the staring admiration that is lavished on me everywhere! I suppose I'll get used to it; but it's a new experience. I like to be looked at, too, much as it embarrasses me. My loveliness is like a beautiful new dress; one is delighted to have it, but terribly shy about wearing it, at first.

Admiration! Why, the mystified music master is ready to go down on his knees to me, the janitor and the page boys are puzzled. I wonder—I wonder what John will say, I almost dread to think of his seeing me so; yet it will be the greatest test. Test! I need none!

The girls in the laboratory are divided between awe and envy, and Kitty Reid—poor Kitty! She began by being puzzled, then grew panic stricken.

The first time she noticed—I shall always remember it—was when I came in from the college one day, still skeptical of change, yet hoping it might be so.

"Why, you've a new way of doing your hair—no; same old pug—but somehow—you're looking uncommon fit to-day," she said glancing up from her drawings.

My heart leaped for joy. It was true then! It was true! But remembering Miss Coleman, I forced myself to reply as quietly as I could:—

"My genius must be beginning to sprout."

A little later Kitty was in constant mystification.

"How do you do it?" she would demand. "What have you got? Can't you let me into the secret? I just think you might introduce me to the fairy godmother."

If I were to tell any one, it would be Kitty, of course. Such a dear little red-headed angel she would make! But it would not be fair to Prof. Darmstetter. He is not ready yet. So I can only sham ignorance and joke with her about milk baths and cold cream and rain water. Now that she has reached the stage of fright, I have great fun with her.

"The age of miracles has come again," she says a hundred times a day. "I can't believe my eyes! How is it that you are growing so beautiful? Is it witchcraft?"

"Am I better looking?" I inquire languidly. "Well, I'm glad of it. I had an aunt who was well-favoured when she was young; it's high time I took after her, if I'm ever going to."

"No living aunt ever looked as you do now," Kitty will mutter, shaking her head. "I don't know what to think. I'm half afraid of you."

To tell the truth, she's more than half afraid of me, and I delight in mystifying her all I can.

But the strangest thing of all, the most ridiculous thing, considering his age, the oddest thing when one remembers that he himself is its creator—Professor Darmstetter is half in love with the beauty he has made; he would be, if he might, the gray and withered Pygmalion of my Galatea!

CHAPTER VII.

THE COMING OF THE LOVER.

December 15.

Really, I don't know which is the more aggravating, John Burke or Kitty. Such a battle as I've had with them to-day!

I had quite stopped fretting over John's absence. Indeed, though of course I wished to see him, I dreaded it; I was so happy, just as I was, and I had so many things to think about, so many dreams to dream and plans to make.

I liked John when he taught the little prairie school and praised me to my wondering relatives. All through my college course I was proud of his regard, because every one respected him; and last June I promised to marry him.

We said then that our love wasn't just a "co-ed. flirtation," because he was a grown man and not a student any more. But—but—but last June I wasn't—

Why, I've but just come to possess the gift that I wouldn't exchange for the proudest throne on earth, and I mean to make it my throne in the great world. I haven't yet had time to think things out or realise my fairy fortune; but John and I mustn't do anything foolish. Wise love can wait.

He came while I was at school.

When I found him here, he actually didn't know me.

He stared as if I were a stranger whose face drew, yet puzzled him. Then he was attracted by my beauty, then for a moment dismayed, and then—why, he was really so much in love that I—I—he gazed at me as if I were not quite real; with reverence. His eyes mirrored my power; the wonder of the new Me, the glory and the radiance of me shone in them. He worships me and—well, of course nobody could help liking that.

He was just as he has always been, but somehow, here in the city, I couldn't help finding him bigger, stronger, more bucolic. His clothes looked coarse. His collar was low for the mode, his gloveless hands were red. There was something almost clerical in his schoolmasterly garb, but his bold dark eyes and short hair aggressively brushed to a standstill, as he used to say, looked anything but ministerial. It was plain that he was a man of sense and spirit, one to be proud of; plain that he was a countryman, too.

I couldn't help seeing his thick shoes any more than I could his hurt face when I was distant and his ardour the moment I grew kind; and I was so ashamed—thinking of his looks and picking flaws, when three months ago I was a country girl myself—that I know—I don't know what I should have done, if Kitty hadn't returned.

I was so relieved to see her, for John has been writing of marriage soon and of a home, in one room if need be; and we have too much to accomplish, with beauty and woman's wit and brain and strength, for that. It is my duty to think for both, if he's too much in love—the dear, absurd fellow! And yet—

As soon as he was gone, Kitty jumped up from the drawing table. She was on pins and needles for anxiety, her eyes dancing.

"Well, when's the wedding?" she cried.

"What wedding?"

I was vexed and puzzled, and distressed, too, after sending John away as I had done. I wanted to be alone and have a chance to think quietly.

"Oh, any old wedding; will it be here, in the den? You going to invite us all?" asked Kitty.

"Isn't going to be any wedding."

"I'm sorry; I always did lot on weddings."

"You'll have to be the bride, then. Honest, Kitty, I don't like jokes on such subjects. Mr. Burke and I haven't an idea of being married, not for centuries."

Kitty went white all in a minute. She is so quick tempered.

"Oh," said she, "you're going to throw him over. I thought as much! You were always writing to him when you first came to the city, and talking about him, at night when we brushed our hair; but lately you haven't spoken of him at all. You used to look happier when the postman brought you something from him. And you had his picture—"

"The postman's?" I interrupted, but Kitty kept on as if she were wound up:—

"—on the mantel-piece, in a white-and-gold frame with your own. You hid 'em both when you began to grow beautiful. I suppose you think you're too good for him. But don't go and break his heart; please don't, Princess; there's a dear."

"Goose! I haven't the least notion of breaking his heart. I—why can't you let me alone? I'm—I'm very fond of him—if you will insist on talking about it."

"Oh, I can see! If you'd noticed the poor fellow's face—"

"'Poor fellow!' If you'd seen him before you came! He doesn't need your pity. Why, it seems to have been with you a case of love at first sight," I said mockingly. "He was rude to you, too; he never even noticed that you were in the room, after I came."

"I don't care. I don't expect a man to notice me when he meets his sweetheart for the first time in ever so long; and such a sweetheart! But you—you—oh, I'm afraid of you! I'm afraid of you! What is this mystery? What is it? Why have you grown so grand and terrible? What has become of my chum?"

She sat down flat on the floor and burst into passionate weeping.

"Get up!" I cried.

"I won't!"

A sense of great loneliness came over me and I threw myself down beside her.

"Oh, Kitty," I said, "why aren't you old and wise and sensible instead of being just a silly girl like myself? Then you wouldn't sit here howling, but you'd kiss me and cuddle me and comfort me and tell me what to do."

"I'm afraid of you! I'm afraid of you! It's—it's no' canny."

"Kitty, Kitty! Why aren't you my fairy godmother, so that you could show me in a magic glass what to do, instead of scolding me, when I'm wretched enough already?"

"Wretched! You!" Her eyes fairly blazed. "I wouldn't ever—ever be wretched if I looked like you—not ever in this world!"

"Yes, you would. You'd be so puzzled about things; and bad girls would scold you, and there wouldn't be a single soul within two thousand miles to rely upon. And you'd be awkward and shy when folks looked at you. And then you'd—you'd—you'd cry."

Afterwards we both wiped our eyes and made it all up; and I told her again that I really was fond of John.

Well, folks must eat. I went out to get some chops, a half dozen oranges and the other things for supper—we have lunch and supper, no dinner—and though I started so blue and wretched, I simply couldn't stay melancholy long, people stared at me and admired me so much. They crowded after me into the little corner grocery, and the room was so full that some one upset a tub of pickles and there they stood around in the vinegar to look at me.

It was frightful! But it was nice too; though I was so embarrassed that I wanted to run away. I'll get used to it; but—why, my own mother wouldn't know me! It's no wonder Kitty is frightened.

I wish I could see Ma. But she couldn't advise me. I ought to have a home, though, and some one older than Kitty to look after me. I must leave the den; but where to go? Suppose I burned myself broiling chops or beefsteak, or blistered my face with steam from the kettle! That would be frightful, now. It's the least I can do for Prof. Darmstetter to keep free from harm the beauty he gives me. And besides,—I never before was afraid, but now I go scurrying through the halls and up and down the stairs like a wild thing; the place is so public, so many people notice me.

I wonder if I couldn't talk to Mrs. Baker. She's at home now. Or there's the Judge's sister, Miss Marcia, the dearest old maid. I've only seen her once or twice, but I believe she'd be good to know.

I have too many problems to stay here. I must make some settled plan, now that my life means so much to all the women in the world. And—how to deal with a headstrong young man who won't take "no" for an answer or "wait" for wisdom I simply don't know. If he would only give me time to make my own acquaintance! There are so many things to think of. A great world is open to me. I have the key and I am going to live the most beautiful life.

I must think and plan and learn how not to be frightened at my own face in the mirror; I must—I simply must have time.

* * * * *

Dec. 17.

I have just seen John again; he came up to Barnard, which won't do at all. And he came home with me, and—how he loves me!

But I can manage him. Indeed, he was more reasonable to-day.