At my awkward, guarded assent, I thought that something of the same
surprise Judge Baker had voiced at my moderation flitted over the old
man's face.

"I find you kvite right; kvite right," he said, "New York has done Mees
Veensheep goot; she looks fery vell."

He whisked into the drug closet, and Helen seated herself before a
microscope next that of the fur-capped woman.

"Do you care for slides?" she said. "I'll get another microscope and while
I draw you may look at any on my rack. But be careful; most of the things
are only temporarily mounted--just in glycerine. Here is the sweetest
longitudinal section of the tentacle of an _Actinia_, and here--look
at these lovely transverse sections of the plumule of a pea; you can see
the primary groups of spiral vessels. They've taken the carmine stain
wonderfully! But my work is not advanced; I wish you could see that of the
other girls."

"I mustn't interfere with your task; I'll look about until you are ready."

Her shining head was already bent over the microscope; her pencil was
moving, glad to respond to the touch of that lovely hand.

I picked up a book, the same little volume I had noticed the day before,
on "Imbedding, Sectioning and Staining." Near it lay a treatise on
histology. I opened to the first chapter, on "Protoplasm and the Cell,"
but I couldn't fix my thoughts on _Bathybius_ or the _Protomoeba_.
I walked toward an aquarium, flanking which stood a jar half-filled
with water in which floated what seemed a big cup-shaped flower