“She has become the special pupil of one of the greatest chemists in France, and she almost literally lives in his laboratory, at least during the daylight hours. She goes to operas about twice a week, and she takes violin lessons from a woman before breakfast; but during the rest of the time she does nothing but slop at a laboratory sink. Her master in this department is madly in love--not with her, though he calls her, in the only English phrase he speaks without accent, ‘the apple of his eye,’--but with her enthusiasm in science. He describes it as a ‘grand passion’ and positively raves in ejaculatory French and badly broken English, over the extraordinary rapidity with which she learns, the astonishing grasp she has of principles, and the readiness with which she applies principles to practice. ‘Positively’ he exclaimed to me the other day, ‘she is no longer a student--she is a chemist,--almost a great chemist. If I had to select one to take absolute control of a laboratory for the nice production of the most difficult compounds, I would this day choose not any man in all France, but Mademoiselle by herself.’ Then he paid you a compliment. He added; ‘and she tells me she has studied under a master for only a few months! It is marvellous! It is incredible, except that we must believe Mademoiselle, who is the soul of honor and truth. Ah--that is what gives her her love of science--for science loves nothing but truth. But her first master must be a wonder, a born teacher, an enthusiast, a real master who inspires his pupil with a passion like his own.’ “I confirmed Dorothy’s statement that she had received only a few months’ tuition in a little plantation laboratory, but--at the risk of making you disagreeably conceited, I will tell you this--I fully confirmed the judgment he had formed of Dorothy’s master. “‘Ah, you know him then?’ the enthusiastic Frenchman broke out; ‘and you will tell me his name, which Mademoiselle refused to speak in answer to my inquiry? And you will give me a letter which may excuse me for the deep presumption when I write to him? I _must_ write to him. I must know a master who has no other such in all France. His name Mademoiselle Bannister, his name, I pray you.’