shelf to overflowing. For more than thirty years the doctor had thrown
into it every page he wrote, from brief notes to the complete texts of
his great works on heredity. Thus it was that his searches here were
not always easy. He rummaged patiently among the papers, and when he
at last found the one he was looking for, he smiled.

For an instant longer he remained near the bookcase, reading the note
by a golden sunbeam that came to him from the middle window. He
himself, in this dawnlike light, appeared, with his snow-white hair
and beard, strong and vigorous; although he was near sixty, his color
was so fresh, his features were so finely cut, his eyes were still so
clear, and he had so youthful an air that one might have taken him, in
his close-fitting, maroon velvet jacket, for a young man with powdered
hair.

"Here, Clotilde," he said at last, "you will copy this note. Ramond
would never be able to decipher my diabolical writing."

And he crossed the room and laid the paper beside the young girl, who
stood working at a high desk in the embrasure of the window to the
right.

"Very well, master," she answered.

She did not even turn round, so engrossed was her attention with the
pastel which she was at the moment rapidly sketching in with broad
strokes of the crayon. Near her in a vase bloomed a stalk of
hollyhocks of a singular shade of violet, striped with yellow. But the
profile of her small round head, with its short, fair hair, was
clearly distinguishable; an exquisite and serious profile, the