"I'm going to stay at home."
"My dear, good brother!"
She drew him down and kissed him tenderly, while the tears stood in the eyes of both; and from that moment there was a new bond between them, stronger than the past had ever known.
One day some weeks later Morton came in with a large roll from the post- office, and threw it into Sara's lap.
"Ah!" she said eagerly, "it is Professor Grandet's hand; what can he have sent me?" and hurried to tear the wrapper open.
Inside were several articles in pamphlet form, two being his own composition, and the rest by another well-known scientist, all relating to the strata and minerals of this very portion of the coast. Being just then at leisure, she began one in which a certain sentence had caught her attention, and soon looked up with an air of excitement. "See here, Morton! This is certainly a mistake; and in B——'s paper, too," reading aloud a certain statement in regard to the rock formations about a mile inland. "He has, you see, made the same mistake we did at first in regard to the dip of that vein, and which we afterwards discovered to be wrong, when we came across the outcropping near the old Judd farm. Don't you remember?"
"Yes," said Morton, dropping his fish-lines to come nearer; "let's hear what he says about it."
She read him a page or two, and they talked the matter over still further; then she continued her reading, only to break out again after a little.
"Listen, Morton! Professor Grandet is with us. He isn't sure, but, from surface indications, he thinks just as we do, and the two men are having a great argument. They're going to discuss the matter next week before the Geological Society. Do you know, I'm half tempted to write Professor Grandet what we have discovered? It might make it perfectly clear to him."
"Well, I would," said Morton, going back to his lines, more interested in them than in what, had he known it, was to have a great and lasting influence on his own and sisters' lives.