or less of electricity, a vast field became opened to conjecture. By what
series of patient experimental deduction might not science arrive at the
solution of problems which the Newtonian law of gravitation does not
suffice to solve; and--But here I halt. At the date which my story has
reached, my mind never lost itself long in the Cloudland of Guess.

I was dissatisfied with my experiment. The needle stirred, indeed, but
erratically, and not in directions which, according to the theory, should
correspond to my movement. I was about to dismiss the trial with some
uncharitable contempt of the foreign philosopher's dogmas, when I heard a
loud ring at my street-door. While I paused to conjecture whether my
servant was yet up to attend to the door, and which of my patients was the
most likely to summon me at so unseasonable an hour, a shadow darkened my
window. I looked up, and to my astonishment beheld the brilliant face of
Mr. Margrave. The sash to the door was already partially opened; he
raised it higher, and walked into the room. "Was it you who rang at the
street-door, and at this hour?" said I.

"Yes; and observing, after I had rung, that all the shutters were still
closed, I felt ashamed of my own rash action, and made off rather than
brave the reproachful face of some injured housemaid, robbed of her
morning dreams. I turned down that pretty lane,--lured by the green of
the chestnut-trees,--caught sight of you through the window, took courage,
and here I am! You forgive me?" While thus speaking, he continued to
move along the littered floor of the dingy room, with the undulating
restlessness of some wild animal in the confines of its den, and he now
went on, in short fragmentary sentences, very slightly linked together,
but smoothed, as it were, into harmony by a voice musical and fresh as a
sky lark's warble. "Morning dreams, indeed! dreams that waste the life
of such a morning. Rosy magnificence of a summer dawn! Do you not pity