"Tom, I am busy. I can't be bothered with ovaries and things to-day," she said. "I have so much to do, and those long names are detestable." Tom's face fell. He was thunderstruck. Never till this moment had Ethel allowed such a remark to escape. "I thought—I hoped—you had learnt to appreciate—" he faltered. "I have tried—really I have—and I can't. I shall never appreciate putting beautiful things into stiff rows, and giving them long names. It isn't in me," said Ethel, her tone half petulant, half apologetic. "You must try your hand on somebody else." "But,—" protested dismayed Tom. "But—" and he could say no more. After all these weeks of careful instruction, it was too much. Tom's whole course of thought was turned upside down by it. He found himself saying, with displeasure, "I imagined that you were a girl of sense." "Oh no! Not botanical sense, Tom." Then she was afraid she had hurt his feelings, and she looked up penitently. "Tom, you mustn't mind me. I'm worried, and it's of no consequence. Another day I'll try to listen. If only you will leave me in peace this afternoon, I'll be good afterwards, and I'll learn all about those horrid umbels. I will, really." Tom did not know what to make of her. He was more won than ever—fascinated, in fact, though Ethel had not the smallest wish to fascinate him. At the same time he was desperately disappointed to find that her "listening" was a matter of "trying." He had flattered himself that she listened because she could not help it: because his speech was of such engrossing interest that she could not turn away. He objected very much to the girlish expression, "those horrid umbels"; but the girlish eyes were too much for him. In the general upsetting of Tom's ideas, one alone kept its equilibrium, and grew more definite. Umbels or no umbels, science or no science, Tom liked Ethel, and he wanted her for his own. She had grown necessary to him these weeks. Existence could not be the same to Tom, if he were bereft of the occupation of watching Ethel. Her deft fingers enchained his masculine intellect. It came over him now, almost as a new idea, that in a few days this occupation would cease. Not that he wished to go. He could have remained at the Rectory for an indefinite period, so far as his own wishes were concerned. A gentle intimation had been made to him, however, that the spare room would be required for another visitor after a certain date; so Tom had no choice. By-and-by he would be returning to Australia, hopelessly out of reach of Ethel, and far beyond the touch of those little fingers, which had somehow become inextricably entwined in Tom's mind with the dried herbarium specimens, for the gumming in of which they were so admirably adapted. What success might not Tom achieve with Ethel as his coadjutor? Ethel little dreamt that her momentary tartness was bringing him to a most undesirable point.