The new chimney stood at the southeast corner of the great four-story mill, and close beside the little brick engine house. Alma led the youthful son of science out of the gate, down the road a few rods, and then they passed a stile, and took the winding path that straggled over the pastures to the mill. Of course they talked volubly. This being the stern and prosy record of applied science, it becomes us not to report the chatterings of these two till they reached the base of the vast brick chimney, towering nearly eighty feet into the air above them. Its long shadow lay like a stiffened snake upon the fields, and Elmer, observing it, said: "Good! We can use the shadow, too, and have double proof." "How?" said the bright one, in a beautiful spirit of inquiry. "If an upright stick, a foot long, casts a shadow three feet long, the shadow of another stick beside it, at the same time, is proportionally long." "I knew that before. That isn't very high science." "Why did you say 'how'?" "Because I didn't think. Because I was a goose." "Such terms are not choice, and are devoid of truth. Here! stern duty calls. Do you hold one end of the tape at the foot of the chimney, and I'll measure off the base line of our triangle." Alma was charmed to be of use, and sat on a stone with the brass ring of the tape on her ring finger next her engagement ring, and her hand flat against the first course of bricks. Trifles sometimes hint great events. Little did she think that the plain brass ring on her finger was the hard truth of science that should shiver her gold ring to fragments and pale its sparkling diamond. Being a wholesome creature, and not given to romance, she thought nothing about it, which was wise. Her cousin, the knight of the theodolite, set his instrument upright upon the grass, and then ran the measuring line out to its full length. "All right! Let the tape go." Alma took off the brass ring, and the steel ribbon ran like a glittering snake through the grass, and she slowly followed it and joined her knight. "Once more, please. Hold the ring on this bit of a stake that I've set up in the ground." Alma, like a good girl, did as she was bid, and the ribbon ran out again to its full length. Another stake was set up, and the theodolite was placed in position and a sight obtained at the top of the tall chimney. A little figuring in a note-book, and then the son of high science quietly remarked: "Seventy-six feet four inches--short five feet two inches." Just here several urchins of an inquiring turn of mind drew near and began to make infantile comments, and asked with charming freedom if it was circus. "No!" said Alma, from under her paper tent. "No! Run away, children, run away." It was too warm for so much exertion, and they wouldn't move. "Oh! never mind them. They don't trouble me; and if it amuses them, it's so much clear gain." "They are some of the factory children, and I thought they might bother you."