The girl uncovered her eyes, and awe-struck, looked at Ethelbert as she bared her arm and showed the blue tracery there, and on her hand, adding: “See, the beautiful stream in the little river-beds here, flows on, and up through this big artery in my throat, over my brain. And Bertha,” she paused, and with a dramatic but perfectly unaffected gesture full of regnant poise, and with a light in her eyes never seen on sea or land, she said again, slowly: “And, Bertha, brain rules here! What the spirit wills, this body must. So my brain has commanded that nothing shall be put into my blood which shall send poisonous elements maddeningly up to the throne of reason. But Bertha, if you think it is wise to do as you do, you may have some good cause for it, that I know nothing about. Tell me, am I mistaken in my ideas? Shall I go with you where you went this afternoon, and put into my veins all that you did into yours?” “Gott bewahr! Oh, don’t say, don’t think of such things of your veins!” cried Bertha, almost throwing her arms round Ethelbert. Reginald sprang to his feet and looked at poor Bertha with a loathful vindictiveness hard to describe. “Is it too bad for me? Oh, then, it must be too bad for you,” said Ethelbert, with a pain intense in her tone. “You cut me to the heart just so when you violate your blood with things of horror. It is good German blood, and part of it flows in my veins, and all of it came from the great Fountain of Life who ‘made of one blood all nations of the earth,’ and who, in this, our beloved country, is gathering up all the nations of the earth into the life of this Republic’s inheritance. It is for women to secure to our nation a heritage better than golden crowns.” Ethelbert’s grey eyes were fixed on a floating cloud, and, absorbing into herself the doings of the beautiful world above, she broke up her reverie; and turning, looked at Bertha, saying explainingly: “You see yourself, Bertha, I mean that my parents and grandparents might have forgotten that I was coming to inherit their blood and their brains, and might have carelessly filled the fountain of their life with poison-loving elements. Now, if they had done so, what do you suppose I would now do about it myself?” “I’ll tell you what you would do about it,” interrupted Reginald. “You would have thought it the best blood in the land, madame, and would have scorned that girl as much as you scorn me, to whom you are reading this lesson over her shoulders. She don’t understand a word you’ve said; but do you think I am a fool?” “No,” said Ethelbert simply. Bertha looked after him as he walked off a few steps.