There sat her father wearing patches, and here sat the callers wearing furs. The mother’s peltries, though Jean did not know it, were Russian sables. But Jean had seen silver foxes before. A boy across the river had caught two on Horatio’s farm and sold them for a thousand dollars, which was twice as much money as her father was now receiving annually. So when Jean saw that the girl’s coat contained two pelts of silver fox, she fell quiet. She was as quiet as a mouse or despair or murder. “It was very sweet of you,” said the older woman, “to send us the lilacs. Ours in Wetumpka were gone a month ago.” “Ours,” said Jean, keeping unflickering eyes on the silver fox, “are earlier than usual.” And now the beautiful creature within the silver fox said something. “There seem to be lots of queer flies on the water. They light on everything, and they have threads for tails.” “Yes.” “What do you call them?” “Shad-flies.” “I love shad. Do you suppose our crew could catch us some?” Of all the ignorant and ridiculous things ever said about the St. Mary’s this was the worst, but it moved no laughter in Jean. She simply kept looking at that silver fox, as if it had been Medusa turning her to stone. “My dear young lady,” said Ambrose Rich, “the shad, which the Romans were wont to call the little silver shield, is a migrating herring which would be glad enough to visit this river if it had the strength. Eels do come. They travel all the way from their birthplace in the Sargasso sea and arrive here when only a few inches long, but they are too round to jump after flies. Your crew can easily catch herring, however, and I will go down with you now and show them how.” “Thank you so much, Mr.—” “My name is Rich.” “And ours is Ferry. We have been having a lovely cruise. Did you notice how green the sky was last evening?” “My daughter noticed it. The Indians too would notice it. They note the difference between green and blue much better than their forefathers did. Few Indians were able to perceive blue, and few had a name for it.” “How curious! Well, I brought along this little package, and hope you will kindly accept it as—as—” She laid the package on the library table. When the callers had departed, the gift lay untouched until the doctor opened it and revealed a green sweater of the softest weave. He placed it in his daughter’s hands, and she kissed him for it. Next morning however he found it in Agricola’s kennel, and deprived the governor of Britain of the most comfortable bed that ever a dog enjoyed. Chapter 19. Potassium Marvin lay in the hospital, trying to realize what had happened to him. Never again could he hope to stir a solution with one hand while he regulated a stopcock with the other. Nor could he see himself making bulbs of laboratory glass, no matter how tough it had been rendered by the nineteenth element. But presently a cable arrived from his father: