During the week of suspense I nearly worried myself into a fever. It was first crazy hope, and then saner despair. On Friday evening, when I presented myself at the professor’s door, I was such a haggard, sleepy, dragged-out specter that even Miss Jocasta, the harsh-favored maiden sister of the Surds, admitted me with commiserate regard, and suggested pennyroyal tea. Professor Surd was at a faculty meeting. Would I wait? Yes, till all was blue, if need be. Miss Abbie? Abscissa had gone to Wheelborough to visit a school-friend. The aged maiden hoped I would make myself comfortable, and departed to the unknown haunts which knew Jocasta’s daily walk. Comfortable! But I settled myself in a great uneasy chair, and waited with the contradictory spirit common to such junctures, dreading every step lest it should herald the man whom, of all men, I wished to see. I had been there at least an hour and was growing right drowsy. At length Professor Surd came in. He sat down in the dusk opposite me, and I thought his eyes glinted with malignant pleasure as he said, abruptly: “So, young man, you think you are a fit husband for my girl?” I stammered some inanity about making up in affection what I lacked in merit, about my expectations, family, and the like. He quickly interrupted me. “You misapprehend me, sir. Your nature is destitute of those mathematical perceptions and acquirements which are the only sure foundations of character. You have no mathematics in you. You are fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils--Shakspere. Your narrow intellect cannot understand and appreciate a generous mind. There is all the difference between you and a Surd, if I may say it, which intervenes between an infinitesimal and an infinite. Why, I will even venture to say that you do not comprehend the Problem of the Couriers!” I admitted that the Problem of the Couriers should be classed rather without my list of accomplishments than within it. I regretted this fault very deeply, and suggested amendment. I faintly hoped that my fortune would be such-- “Money!” he impatiently exclaimed. “Do you seek to bribe a Roman senator with a penny whistle? Why, boy, do you parade your paltry wealth, which, expressed in mills, will not cover ten decimal places, before the eyes of a man who measures the planets in their orbits, and close crowds infinity itself?” I hastily disclaimed any intention of obtruding my foolish dollars, and he went on: “Your letter surprised me not a little. I thought _you_ would be the last person in the world to presume to an alliance here. But having a regard for you personally,”--and again I saw malice twinkle in his small eyes,--“and still more regard for Abscissa’s happiness, I have decided that you shall have her--upon conditions. Upon conditions,” he repeated, with a half-smothered sneer. “What are they?” cried I, eagerly enough. “Only name them.”