Then he took the tube from her hand and explained how she had failed to get the significant things, and how valueless she would be unless she made the determining points stand out. He was very blunt and unflattering, but she was grateful to him from the bottom of her heart. "You see you do have to have some brains after all," he concluded with a sigh. But after that he frequently devoted his entire hour to helping her. He had come to accept her as one of his duties, and Beason was not one to neglect his appointed task. Day by day she gained a great deal from the uncompromising Mr. Beason. In fact, after those first uncertain weeks, she gained a great deal from every one. Gradually it began to systematise itself, and Ernestine's good sense, her earnestness, which was fairly devotion, her respect for every one's knowledge and gratitude for all help--to say nothing of her eyes and smile and voice--slowly penetrated even the conservatism of science. Dr. Parkman did not neglect her. He came out often and spent an hour in the laboratory, bringing things for her to work with. Perhaps the doctor saw that quite as much as his help, she needed the prestige his attention would give. It was no small thing to have the great Dr. Parkman giving her his time. "Upon my soul," Mr. Willard said one day, after the doctor had been there a long time and had seemed very much in earnest, "I don't believe Parkman's the man to spend his time on a wild goose chase!" "It doesn't seem so, does it?" said Professor Hastings ingenuously. "Why, think what that man's time is worth!" continued Mr. Willard, growing more and more impressed. "I don't know any one else out here who would get much of it," Professor Hastings ventured. "Well, she is a remarkable woman," Willard said then, insistently. And Professor Hastings--understanding many things about human beings--said he was really coming to feel that way himself.