Before the two weeks were up which were to restore John to comparatively easy circumstances, and Marjory to respectability so far as her hands went, John asked her to go with him to hear a lecture. Just about that time he was rather wild concerning natural history, for which, I am sorry to say, Marjory did not care a pin. She indignantly repelled the idea of a gorilla somewhere toward the top of her family tree, asserting that she preferred to believe that she had descended from so mean a man as Adam, and so curious a woman as Eve, to that: furthermore, she was indifferent upon the subject. But there was not much she would not do to please John; so when he asked her to go with him to hear a lecture about the gorilla, she made a face to herself, and said certainly she would. She consented with rather better grace from the fact that Mr. Pradamite--such was the lecturer's euphonious name--undertook to prove conclusively that man was _not_ descended from the gorilla; but when the little old gentleman walked briskly upon the stage, she whispered John that he would have been a valuable advocate of the theory held by the other side: he wanted nothing but a little pointed felt hat, with a feather in it, to look very much like a small edition of the original gorilla reduced to earning his living by assisting a hand-organist. The lecture, to John, was delightful--so clear, so logical, went so far back, and so deep down, and so high up. "Walked all around that fellow I heard last week on the other side," John said. But Marjory, who had herself taken a long walk that afternoon, thought the whole thing unutterably stupid: her eyelids would drop, her neck felt double-jointed and would not stay erect. Fortunately, their seats were far back, not very brilliantly lighted, and Marjory's had the advantage of being next a pillar. John, however, considered this fact unfortunate, for he could not obtain a good view of the remarkable figures with which the old gentleman was illustrating his lecture, talking in spasmodic jerks as he drew, and when John saw a dear and scientific friend on a front seat, with a vacant place beside him, he could not resist the temptation to take it. He looked at Marjory: she was half asleep, but still contending bravely for the other half. He surveyed their immediate neighbors--three strong-minded-looking women just behind them; a fatherly-looking old gentleman in the seat next his own; a pillar protecting Marjory on the other side, and two highly respectable-looking young men in the row of seats before them, who appeared to be listening intently and occasionally taking notes; at least, one of them was, and he submitted his note-book to the criticism of the other, who smiled approvingly. The seats immediately in front of his own and Marjory's were vacant.