pinkness of his complexion--always looking as though she were fresh from
her shower. But there was nothing mannish about Lou Grayling--nothing at
all, though she had other attributes of body and mind for which to thank
her father.

They were the best of chums. No father and daughter could have trod the
odd corners of the world these two had visited without becoming so
closely attached to each other that their processes of thought, as well
as their opinions in most matters, were almost in perfect harmony.
Although Mrs. Euphemia Conroth was the professor's own sister he could
appreciate Lou's attitude in this emergency. While the girl was growing
up there had been times when it was considered best--usually because of
her studies--for Lou to live with Aunt Euphemia. Indeed, that good lady
believed it almost a sin that a young girl should attend the professor on
any of his trips into "the wilds," as she expressed it. Aunt Euphemia
ignored the fact that nowadays the railroad and telegraph are in Thibet
and that turbines ply the headwaters of the Amazon.

Mrs. Conroth dwelt in Poughkeepsie--that half-way stop between New York
and Albany; and she was as exclusive and opinionated a lady as might be
found in that city of aristocracy and learning.

The college in the shadow of which Aunt Euphemia's dwelling basked, was
that which had led the professor's daughter under the lady's sway.
Although the girls with whom Lou associated within the college walls were
up-to-the-minute--if not a little ahead of it--she found her aunt, like
many of those barnacles clinging to the outer reefs of learning in
college towns, was really a fossil. If one desires to meet the
ultraconservative in thought and social life let me commend him to this
stratum of humanity within stone's throw of a college. These barnacles