"Then you really are a year-round resident? I suppose my view _is_ the tourist's view. I can't believe anybody lives here in winter. I hope you won't mind my introducing myself"--he handed her a card. "You made such a pretty picture up there beside the trail yesterday that I couldn't forbear speaking to you on a second meeting. I wanted to know whether you were real or just a fragment of sunset cloud." The ease and candor of his manner, joined to the effect of the name on the card, fully reassured her, and she looked up with a smile. "Won't you come in and rest?" "Thank you, I should like particularly to do so, I've been for a climb up that peak behind your cottage and I'm tired." Her reserve quite melted, the girl led the way to the door where her mother stood in artless wonder. "Mother, this is Dr. Serviss, of Corlear College." "I'm glad to know you, sir," said Mrs. Lambert, with old-fashioned formality. "Won't you come in?" "Thank you. It will be a pleasure." "Are you a physician?" she asked, as she took his hat and stick. "Oh, dear, no! Nothing so useful as that. I'm a doctor by brevet, as they say in the army." Then, as though acknowledging that his hostess was entitled to know a little more about her intrusive guest, he added: "I am a student of biology, Mrs. Lambert, and assistant to Dr. Weissmann, the head of the bacteriological department of Corlear Medical College. We study germs--microscopic 'bugs,'" he ended, with humorous glance at Viola. "What a charming bungalow you have here! Did you gather those wild flowers?" Viola answered in the tone of a pupil to her master, "Yes, sir." "But some of them grow high. You must be a mountaineer. Pardon my curiosity--it is inexcusable--but how long have you lived here?" The mother looked at her daughter for confirmation. "Eight years." "Of course you are from the East?" "Yes, from Wisconsin." He laughed. "_We_ call Wisconsin a Western State. Of course, it's the ignorant prejudice of the New-Yorker, but I find it hard to think of you as actual residents of this far-away little town. I thought only miners lived here?" "We are miners. My husband has a mine up in the Basin, but he's putting in some new machinery just now and is unable to come down but once a week." Then mildly resenting his implied criticism of the town, she added: "We have just as nice people here as you'll find anywhere." He responded gallantly, "I am quite prepared to believe that, Mrs. Lambert. But do many nice people like you live here all the year round?" He was bent on drawing the girl out, but she did not respond. The mother answered: "I haven't been away except to take my daughter East to school." He was cautious. "By East you mean Milwaukee?" "Diamond Lake, Wisconsin." He turned to the girl. "How long were you away?" "Four years." "Did you like it?" "Very much."