Helen laughed, and staring at him, called him a bear, and told him he ought to live in a hospital, where he would have plenty of sick women to tease. "I should find few like you there." He chirruped to his horse, but checked it again, put out his head and called, "Keep your feet warm, wont you? And read Shakespeare." Helen said that Dr. White had been crossed in love, and long after had married a deformed woman--for science's sake, perhaps. His talent was well known out of Rosville; but he was unambitious and eccentric. "He is interested in you, Cass, that I see. Are you quite well? What about the change you spoke of?" "Dr. White has theories; he has attached one to me. Nature has adjusted us nicely, he thinks, with fine strings; if we laugh too much, or cry too long, a knot slips somewhere, which 'all the king's men' can't take up again. Perhaps he judges women by his deformed wife. Men do judge that way, I suppose, and then pride themselves on their experience, commencing their speeches about us, with 'you women.' I'll answer your question, though,--there's a blight creeping over me, or a mildew." "Is there a worm i' the bud?" "There may be one at the root; my top is green and flourishing, isn't it?" "You expect to be in a state of beatitude always. What is a mote of dust in another's eye, in yours is a cataract. You are mad at your blindness, and fight the air because you can't see." "I feel that I see very little, especially when I understand the clearness of your vision. Your good sense is monstrous." "It will come right somehow, with you; when twenty years are wasted, maybe," she answered sadly. "There's the first bell! I haven't a word yet of my rhetoric lesson," opening her book and chanting, "'Man, thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.' Are you going to Professor Simpson's class?" shutting it again. "I know the new dance"; and she began to execute it on the walk. The door of a house opposite us opened, and a tall youth came out, hat in hand. Without evincing surprise, he advanced toward Helen, gravely dancing the same step; they finished the figure with unmoved countenances. "Come now," I said, taking her arm. He then made a series of bows to us, retreating to the house, with his face toward us, till he reached the door and closed it. He was tall and stout, with red hair, and piercing black eyes, and looked about twenty-three. "Who can that be, Helen?" "A stranger; probably some young man come to Dr. Price, or a law student. He is new here, at all events. His is not an obscure face; if it had been seen, we should have known it." "We shall meet him, then."