"What else?"
"Has your helper got reddish-brownish, brownish-reddish hair—the color of the sideboards in the dining-room?"
"Well," said Martha, "she has and she hasn't. The first of every month 'tis that color or thereabouts; but be the twenty-ninth or thirtieth 'tis back to a good workin' gray."
"The day I got back from the sea," said the Poor Boy to himself, "was about the twenty-ninth or the thirtieth. But still if I'm going to believe what can't be true—I say, Martha, lend me a saucer of alcohol, will you?"
Old Martha bustled off and returned with what he required. The Poor Boy carried his chemical into the book-room and closed the door firmly, and much to Martha's disappointment, she being anxious to know what was toward in her darling's mind.
The Poor Boy placed the saucer of alcohol in the light, and dropped into it the mahogany-colored hair; nothing happened. The hair itself appeared brighter perhaps, but the crystal liquid was not discolored. The Poor Boy devoted half an hour to the experiment. There was no development.
"Not Ed Pinaud," he then said reverently, "dyed this hair, but the Lord God."
He put it away in a safe place, just over his heart.
"Not," he said, "because it is hers, but because it is the same color. And because there are stranger things in heaven and earth than ever any man wotted of in his philosophy."
Martha knocked on the door.