“I should have been a botanist if I had not been a baronet,” he had said to her one day, with a smile, and she had mentally resolved that he should be both. So she studied with him, she praised, she encouraged as only good and wise women can do. Every new work she saw advertised she sent for; she let no opportunity escape of helping and encouraging him. His taste took a strange turn--it was no longer confined to English flowers, the wild, sweet blossoms of the fields and the gems of the garden. He studied with incredible ardor the history of African plants--those ardent flowers that neither burn nor shrivel under the warmest kisses of the African sun--flowers watered only at rare intervals and living in tropical splendor where others would die. This African flora had a strange, weird charm for him. He read, he wrote, he studied, he made glowing dreams to himself of the lives of those brilliant flowers. And then he wrote a book about them--a book that left its mark on the age, that was written in such glowing, fiery, poetical language men and women read it with wonder, read and reread it, wondering why they had never thought before of those curious facts and fancies, wondering why a man in whose soul the light of genius burned so fiercely had never shown the world that light before. Then scientific men read and argued about it until the name of Sir Ronald Alden of Aldenmere became famous throughout the land. There arose between these learned men a wonderful discussion over some of the plants--a discussion that created great interest and attention. The result was that a party of scientific men who were about starting to Africa on an exploring expedition wrote and earnestly implored Sir Ronald Alden to join them. CHAPTER XXXII. SIR RONALD’S DECISION.