And for more than an hour, he tested her with the most abstruse problems. They were all, to his utter amazement, carefully solved.
"And you have had no teacher, you say?" he queried.
"Only as regards the rudiments of the science, father," she answered. "Austin taught me those."
"Austin! Then he knew?"
"Yes, he did; but at my request, he kept my secret."
"Was that right, Priscilla—a secret from me?"
"You forget, father," she replied, "how often you spoke with contempt of women meddling with subjects out of their sphere. You remember how angry you were when you found I had begun to study astronomy; and how, when I asked you to try me as regarded my knowledge of that subject, you refused to do so. O father, I could not after that tell you."
Once again the professor examined his daughter, and after hearing her correct answers, he bent his head on his hands, and, as if speaking to himself, said, "God be praised that one of my children has so fully inherited my father's talent, though it is only a girl."
And drawing his daughter into his arms, he kissed her as he had never done since her birth.
From that day Priscilla could no longer complain of her father's disparagement of her talents. Many pleasant hours were spent in his study, sometimes transcribing for him or reading aloud some book on his favourite subject. And after studies were ended, Priscilla would open the Book of Life and read aloud of Him "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," and yet who hath declared by his Spirit that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God," so that "he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."