Finally, a whole year elapsed since the death of her father, and no extraordinary change took place in the relations of the master and his pupil. True, each day their intercourse became more unrestrained, and their art-association more intimate. But this intimacy was not the tie of personal friendship or individual esteem. It began in the laboratory, and there it ended. Pollexfen had no soul except for his art; no love outside of his profession. Money he seemed to care for but little, except as a means of supplying his acids, salts and plates. He rigorously tested every metal, in its iodides and bromides; industriously coated his plates with every substance that could be albumenized, and plunged his negatives into baths of every mineral that could be reduced to the form of a vapor. His activity was prodigious; his ingenuity exhaustless, his industry absolutely boundless. He was as familiar with chemistry as he was with the outlines of the geography of Scotland. Every headland, spring and promontory of that science he knew by heart. The most delicate experiments he performed with ease, and the greatest rapidity. Nature seemed to have endowed him with a native aptitude for analysis. His love was as profound as it was ready; in fact, if there was anything he detested more than loud laughter, it was superficiality. He instinctively pierced at once to the roots and sources of things; and never rested, after seeing an effect, until he groped his way back to the cause. "Never stand still," he would often say to his pupil, "where the ground is boggy. Reach the rock before you rest." This maxim was the great index to his character; the key to all his researches.