"What do I see? Is it possible? You two children together!" This exclamation dispelled the magic which for a moment had bound the young souls to each other. Laura went coldly up to her godmother and related how the Doctor had accidently come up at the time of her distress. But the Doctor explained that he had only wished to bring the young lady safely to her; then he inquired after the health of the old lady and took his leave. While her godmother was applying restoratives and determining that Laura should return home another way under the care of her maid-servant, the Doctor went back with light steps to the wood. His frame of mind was entirely changed and a smile frequently passed over his countenance. The thought was constantly recurring to him how the girl had rested in his arms. He had felt her bosom against his; her hair had touched his cheeks and he had gazed on her white neck. The worthy youth blushed at the thought and hastened his steps. In one thing at least the Professor was not wrong--a woman is, after all, very different from the ideal that a man derives from the study of human life and the history of the world. It certainly seemed to the Doctor now that there was something very attractive in wavy locks, rosy cheeks and a beautiful form. He admitted that this discovery was not new, but he had not hitherto felt its value with such distinctness. It had been so touching when she recovered from her swoon, opened her eyes and withdrew herself bashfully from his arms. Also his having defended her so valiantly filled him with cheerful pride. He stopped on the field of battle and laughed out right heartily. Then he went along the same road by which Laura had come from the wood. He looked along the ground as if he could discover the traces of her little feet upon the gravel, and he enjoyed the brightness and warmth of the air, the alluring song of the birds, the fluttering of the dragon-flies, with as light a heart as his pretty neighbor had done shortly before. Then the recollection of his friend came across him. He thought, with satisfaction, of the agitations of the Professor's mind and the commotion which Thusnelda had brought into it. The result had had a droll effect upon the Professor. His friend had been very comical in the pathos of his rising passion. Such a firm, earnest being contrasted curiously with the whimsical attacks which fate makes on the life of earth-born creatures. When he came to the last bush in which rustled one of the little grasshoppers, whose chirping he had often heard in times of anxiety, he spoke out gaily, "Even these have their turn, first the sheep, then the grasshoppers." He began singing half aloud a certain old song in which the grasshoppers were asked to go away and no longer to burden his spirit. Thus he returned home from his walk in right cheerful frame of mind, like a man of the world.