without design of her own. Her mother sent her up to a lumber room one day
to hunt through an old box of books for a story she wanted her to read to
the children, and the box happened to contain some medical works, which
Evadne peeped into during her search. A plate first attracted her
attention, and then she read a little to see what the plate meant, and
then she read a little more because the subject fascinated her, and the
lucid language of a great scientific man, certain of his facts, satisfied
her, and carried her on insensibly. She continued standing until one leg
tired, then she rested on the other; then she sat on the hard edge of the
box, and finally she subsided on to the floor, in the dust, where she was
found hours later, still reading.

"My dear child, where _have_ you been?" her mother exclaimed
irritably, when at last she appeared. "I sent you to get a book to read to
the children."

"There it is, mother--'The Gold Thread'" Evadne answered. "But I cannot
read to the children until after their tea. They were at their lessons
this morning, and we are all going out this afternoon." She had neither
forgotten the children nor the time they wanted their book, which was
eminently characteristic. She never did forget other people's interests,
however much she might be absorbed by the pleasure of her own pursuits.

"And I found three other books, mother, that I should like to have; may
I?" she continued. "They are all about our bones and brains, and the
circulation of the blood, and digestion. It says in one of them that
muriatic acid, the chemical agent by which the stomach dissolves the food,
is probably obtained from muriate of soda, which is common salt contained
in the blood. Isn't that interesting? And it says that pleasure--not
excitement, you know--is the result of the action of living organs, and it