For some moments there was silence and then the Doctor, laying down her pen, turned to the boy and said, pleasantly; "You are Carl Woodford, are you not?" "Yes, ma'am." "It has been so long since I saw you that you have almost grown out of my knowledge. You are getting to be almost a man. You must be fifteen years old." "Not quite. I will be next June." "Almost a man," said Dr. Barrett softly as she looked thoughtfully into the fire. After a moment's silence she asked, "Carl, what is it to be a man?" The boy drew himself up with a self-conscious air as he replied. "Why, to have your growth, and get into business for yourself." "Well, that is not quite it," said the Doctor smiling, "for I have my growth and am in business for myself, and yet I am not a man." "Maybe it means having a mustache," said Carl, with a slight flush. "That has something to do with it certainly, but Mrs. Flynn has a mustache, and she is not a man." "Well, I don't know how to explain it then," said Carl. "You have studied grammar, will you parse the word man?" "Man is a common noun, masculine gender, third----" "What does masculine gender mean?" "It means male." "Then to be a man means to be a male. How does the grammar define gender?" "The distinction of nouns with regard to sex." "Have you studied physiology?" "Yes'm." "Was it the physiology of man or woman?" "Why, it didn't say anything but physiology." "You studied, then, only those organs in which men and women are alike, as in their muscular and nervous systems, and in the organs of digestion; in fact you learned only of the organs which are for the preservation of the individual. You learned nothing of them in regard to sex, which is termed special physiology." A wave of color was creeping over Carl's face, seeing which the Doctor said: "As you have never studied this special physiology supposing you try to forget that any one has ever told you anything about it, and let us for a few minutes talk of it as of God's laws. We believe God to be pure, and we cannot believe that he would make a law that was founded on impurity. It is true we are able to think of his laws in an impure way, but that is our fault, not his. Let us now try to think his pure thoughts after him. If there are two sexes created by the Almighty he must have a pure purpose in creating them. We seldom think how much of beauty and melody and loveliness is due to sex.