herself upon being so mis-made. She cannot help t'at; neit'er can I help
despising her. Such vomen are abnormal, monstrous, in a vord, failures.
Let t'em die! You, I t'ink, are not so. You study to bide t'e time. You
haf a fine carriage. You comb t'e hair, you haf pretty ribbons, you make
t'e body strong and supple, you look in t'e glass and vish for more
beauty. Not so?"

"Of course I do," I cried angrily, wondering for the moment if he had lost
his senses. It seemed as if he knew little about women for a man who
professed to make all life his study. If there were one of his despised
girls who lacked the desire of beauty and the dream of love, I am much
mistaken. But I came to see afterward that he understood them as well as
myself.

"I t'ought so," he mused, his eyes still upon my face. "And you are not
too beautiful now; t'ey could not doubt. Yes; I vatch you, I study you.
Seldom I make t'e mistake; but it is fery important. So I vatch you a
little v'ile longer yet. T'en I say to myelf: 'Here is t'e voman; yes, she
is found.'"

And he chuckled and rubbed his lean hands together as I had so often seen
him do.

The thought flashed across my mind that this extraordinary man meditated a
proposal of marriage, but I dismissed the notion as ridiculous.

The Professor leaned forward and, fixing me with his eye, spoke in a
hoarse whisper, tense with excitement:--

"Mees Veenship, I am a biologist; you are a voman, creature of Nature,