When the clock struck three she laid down her pen; and the mournful expression that crept into her eyes told that memory was busy with the past years. When she fell asleep she dreamed not of Sir Roger but of Le Bocage and its master, of whom she would not permit herself to think in her waking hours. The influence which Mr. Manning exerted over Edna increased as their acquaintance ripened; and the admiring reverence with which she regarded the editor was exceedingly flattering to him. With curious interest he watched the expansion of her mind, and now and then warned her of some error into which she seemed inclined to plunge, or wisely advised some new branch of research. So firm was her confidence in his nature and dispassionate judgment, that she yielded to his opinions a deferential homage, such as she had scarcely paid even to Mr. Hammond. Gradually and unconsciously she learned to lean upon his strong, clear mind, and to find in his society a quiet but very precious happiness. The antagonism of their characters was doubtless one cause of the attraction which each found in the other, and furnished the balance-wheel which both required. Edna's intense and dreamy idealism demanded a check, which the positivism of the editor supplied; and his extensive and rigidly accurate information, on almost all scientific topics, constituted a valuable treasury of knowledge to which he never denied her access. His faith in Christianity was like his conviction of the truth of mathematics, more an intellectual process and the careful deduction of logic than the result of some emotional impulse; his religion like his dialectics was cold, consistent, irreproachable, unanswerable. Never seeking a controversy on any subject, he never shunned one, and, during its continuance, his demeanor was invariably courteous, but unyielding, and even when severe he was rarely bitter. Very early in life his intellectual seemed to have swallowed up his emotional nature, as Aaron's rod did those of the magicians of Pharaoh, and only the absence of dogmatism, and the habitual suavity of his manner, atoned for his unbending obstinacy on all points. Edna's fervid and beautiful enthusiasm surged and chafed and broke over this man's stern, flinty realism, like the warm, blue waters of the Gulf Stream that throw their silvery spray and foam against the glittering walls of sapphire icebergs sailing slowly southward. Her glowing imagery fell upon the bristling points of his close phalanx of arguments, as gorgeous tropical garlands caught and empaled by bayonets until they faded. Merciless as an anatomical lecturer, he would smilingly take up one of her metaphors and dissect it, and over the pages of her MSS. for "Maga" his gravely spoken criticisms fell withering as hoar frost.