with her baby-blue eyes, was of the type that craved admiration.
Mina's black eyes flashed now and then imperiously, as though she
sought to compel what the other sought to win.

As for Fleming Lewis, I could not fail to notice that he was most
attentive to Madeline, though he watched, furtively, but none the
less keenly, every movement and word of Mina.

His preparations completed, Kennedy opened the package which had
been left at the laboratory just before the hasty call from Miss
Grey. As he did so he disclosed several specimens of a mushroom of
pale-lemon color, with a center of deep orange, the top flecked
with white bits. Underneath, the gills were white and the stem had
a sort of veil about it. But what interested me most, and what I
was looking for, was the remains of a sort of dirty, chocolate-
colored cup at the base of the stem.

"I suppose there is scarcely any need of saying," began Kennedy,
"that the food which I suspect in this case is the mushrooms. Here
I have some which I have fortunately been able to obtain merely to
illustrate what I am going to say. This is the deadly Amanita
muscaria, the fly-agaric."

Madeline Hargrave seemed to be following him with a peculiar
fascination.

"This Amanita," resumed Kennedy, "has a long history, and I may
say that few species are quite so interesting. Macerated in milk,
it has been employed for centuries as a fly-poison, hence its
name. Its deadly properties were known to the ancients, and it is