the rug which a rich girl had bought to cover the threadbare spot in the
carpet in front of the mirror. "Now you'll catch it!" the last one said,
as she carefully put her hat straight with both hands and ran out of the
room.

When I returned to the laboratory Prof. Darmstetter motioned me to a chair
and took one opposite, from which he fixed his keen eyes upon my face.
Again he seemed weighing, judging, considering me with uncanny, impersonal
scrutiny.

"How I despise t'ose vomen!" he said at last, throwing up his hands with
an impatient gesture.

Used to his ways, I waited in silence.

"I teach t'ose vomen, yes; but I despise t'em," he added.

"If you do, you ought to be ashamed of it," I retorted hotly. "But I don't
believe you really despise them. Such a bright lot of girls--why, some of
them are bound to be heard from in science some day!"

"In science? Bah!"

"Why not? There was Mary Somerville and--and--and Caroline Herschel and--
well, I can't think of their names all in a minute, but I'm proud to be
one of the girls here anyway."

"You are not one of t'em," he cried angrily. "T'ey are life failures. You
fancy t'ey are selected examples, but t'ey are not; t'ey are t'e rejected.
T'ey stood in t'e market place and no man vanted t'em; or else t'ey are