All this I suspected in less than ten minutes from the Professor’s entrance; he did not leave me long in doubt about it. It is just to myself to say that the discovery did not mortify me much. My little observations had been made, partly from pure love of nature’s doings, partly through habits drawn from a darker spring. At first I had felt no pleasure in them, but it could not long be so. Now they were mine as much as ever, though a thousand shared them with me. As the Professor laid bare my ignorance and my errors, and proved that the little I did know was at second hand--which it certainly was not--I attempted no reply; I was too young for argument, and too much interested to be impatient. So he demolished my ham and myself, with equal relish and equal elegance of handling. He seemed to have no intention of doing either, but managed both incidentally, and almost accidentally, while he opened his mental encyclopædia. At length, Isola, who was tired of lectures, such as she got and forgot every day, felt that it was high time to assert her prerogative, and come to my rescue. "Come, Pappy, you fancy you know everything, don’t you?" He was just beginning to treat of mosses; and I knew that he was wrong upon several points, but did not dare to say so. "My dear child, of the million things I never shall discover, one is the way to keep you at all in order." "I should hope not, indeed. Come now, here is another thing you don’t know. How long did it take to boil this delicious ham? Clara knows, and so do I." "Upon that matter, I confess my total ignorance." "Hear, hear! Pappy, you can lecture by the hour upon isothermic laws, and fluids, and fibrine, and adipose deposits, and you can’t tell how long it took to set this delicate fat. I’ll tell you what it is, Pappy, if you ever snub me in lecture again before the junior sophists, as you dared to do yesterday, I’ll sing out, ’Ham, Pappy, ham!’ and you’ll see how the girls will laugh." "No novelty, my dear, for them to laugh at you. I fear you never will learn anything but impertinence." His words were light, and he strove to keep his manner the same; but his eyes belied him. Isola ran round, and administered her never-failing remedy. There was that sweetness about her nobody could resist it. Returning to her seat, she gave me a nod of triumph, and began again. "Now, Papples, when you are good again, you shall have a real treat. Clara will show you her cordetto, won’t you, dear? It is twice as big as yours, and more than twice as pretty." I took it from my neck, where it had been throughout my illness. Isola told me continually that it had saved my sight; and so old Cora devoutly believed, crossing herself, and invoking fifty saints. Long afterwards I found that Cora knew it to be the heart of the Blessed Virgin, perpetuated in the material which her husband used. If so, it had been multiplied as well.