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ical thickening of the epidermis which | exhausted, while the dark lines under her fills it becomes the "lens cylinder."

A succession of drawings made by Mr. Watase upon the simplest forms of the ocellæ of larvæ and some millepeds perfectly well illustrate the various possible phases of evolution of the eye, from the minute cavities, or ocellæ, which appear in great numbers, closely packed together, to the more complicated eyes described by Exner. We thus have in Mr. Watase's work, confirmed by another work, by M. Kishinouye, a most valuable contribution to the solution of one of the complicated problems of the doctrine of evolution.

We can only mention several very interesting works on the origin of the prickles in various plants, on the effects of high altitudes upon animals, on the compound structure of the higher plants and the effects of atavism, and so onall resulting from the modern endeavors of many biologists at explaining the origin and development of variations in animals and plants under the effects of their surroundings. A good deal of attention being paid now to the chapter of "direct adaptation" in the theory of the evolution of species, many interesting facts are continually brought to light by the work of the modern followers of Lamarck.

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IT was about half past five, on a March afternoon some few years ago, when Gertrude Hurst, worn out with a long morning of teaching, and a long afternoon of correcting books, let her pen slip from her hand, and leaned back in her armchair, just for a few moment's laziness. "I will not even shut my eyes," she said, as though in excuse to herself for this unwonted indulgence.

But Nature inexorably claims her own, and before many minutes had passed, this tired London high-school teacher had fallen fast asleep. Her arms rested listlessly on each side of the chair, and her head was pressed against its cane back. There was a worried look on her thin face; and indeed her whole strength seemed

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eyes told a story of study protracted late into the night. She was dressed in some kind of loose-fitting gown, of a style free and unfashionable; her dark-brown hair was cut short, in the way that many girls now choose for comfort and convenience; not any of her features were beautiful, but there was the beauty of thoughtfulness about her face. Her table was strewn with exercise and lesson books, and a few set apart were obviously for her own private work, being several volumes of biology, inorganic chemistry, and physics, and Salmon's "Conic Sections," and Smith's " Analytical Conics," and two or three frowning treatises on trigonometry. Her little sitting-room, rather comfortless in its poverty, had for ornaments two or three photographs of pictures from the National Gallery, and a photograph of Watts's beautiful picture of "Hope." This picture faced Gertrude Hurst's writing-table, so that every time she raised her eyes from her work, they fell naturally there. The other ornaments of the room were a few books, held together by a home-made book-shelf. On the fire the kettle was boiling merrily, waiting impatiently until it should please the lady to fill the little black teapot which was reposing in a corner of the fender. A shabby white cat was sitting upright on the hearth, contemplating with learned gravity some loose sheets, which had fallen to the ground, and which were covered with figures and signs having something to do with parabolæ and tangents, asymptotes and other mathematical mysteries. The room was evidently that of a solitary stu dent, and yet the slight figure of the girl yonder seemed so childlike, that at first sight she might well have been taken for a child; only on closer inspection one could see that she had lived through years of toil and of sorrow, and had learned things which time alone can teach.

Gertrude Hurst must have been sleeping for more than half an hour, when some one knocked at the door. Receiving no answer, the person asking for admittance refused to be kept waiting any longer, and opened the door for himself and looked into the room. Then, seeing the sleeper in the armchair, he stood hesitating what to do.

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Poor tired child!" he whispered; "she is worn out with work."

He went gently up to her side and bent over her, and stooping down, picked up the pen which had fallen from her hand, and replaced it on the inkstaud. He lin

gered by the fireplace as though he were reluctant to go away.

"I suppose I ought to go," he said to himself; "for she thinks I am still in Australia, and I should startle her on her first awakening."

And again he murmured to himself: "Poor child! she is worn out. I am glad I have come home to help her."

Perhaps he would have really gone; but at that moment the black kettle boiled over, and Elkin Annerley bent down to rescue it from the indignant fire, whilst the shabby cat looked calmly on, as though it understood all about the proceedings, and did not intend to ruffle itself on account of an agitated kettle. The kettle was placed in safety on the hob; and Elkin Annerley was just turning towards the door, when he suddenly caught sight of those papers lying under the armchair. And a few well-known hieroglyphics arrested his attention, everything that was mathematical in him arose in excitement. He took up the loose sheet as though it were some precious gem, and began to examine it; then he frowned and shook his head, and mechanically drawing a pencil out of his pocket, he made some few corrections.

"The whole thing is wrong," he said impatiently; "waste of time and waste of paper. She ought to be ashamed of herself, after all my teaching, too.”

He snatched from the shelf a large book on which to fix the paper, and he settled himself in a low chair near the fire, and rested his feet against the fender. He was soon lost in the interesting and absorbing nature of his work; and to judge from the far-away look on his face, he had probably forgotten everything save the one important fact that here was a most intricate problem badly worked out, in defiance, too, of some of the most elementary mathematical rules and formulæ. "This is just the sort of carelessness to irritate me," he said. "Perhaps it is a good thing for my pupils that I am not now teaching mathematics."

His face cleared, though, when he turned over the page and found some other problems cleverly worked out.

"Come, come," he said, "this problem redeems the other." And with the old instinct of a master, he put V. G. at the end of it, and signed his initials E. A., smiling somewhat mournfully as he did so. He was a man of about thirty years of age, very frail, and of medium height. He had the appearance of being worn out

before his time; but the enemy, consump tion, had not been able to rob him of everything, and there was still a pleasing sort of defiance in the way in which he carried his head a head which had not submitted itself to the doubtful mercies of the conventional barber. His eyes seemed fixed on distant objects, as though they were trying to penetrate into that Infinite which is the pleasure-ground of all mathematicians. For a mind bent on tangents and parabolæ and hyperbolæ, on sines and cosines, and the resultant of forces, and the properties of cones, is allowed on all hands to be hopeless, so far as the plain and matter-of-fact things of the outer world are concerned. And Elkin Annerley, the young mathematical master, whose bad health had obliged him to give up all his work and his prospects, seemed quite to have lost himself, as he sat there working out problems, probably suggested by these others which he had just been correcting. His hand moved over the paper quickly, and then as quickly crossed out all the working, the writer shaking his head in vexation.

"That was not the shortest way of doing it," he said. "Ah! this is far neater and prettier. It would be a good rider to set for an examination paper. I shall make a note of it."

Whilst he was thus busily engaged, Gertrude Hurst awoke, and, turning round, saw her visitor. She rose, and stood waiting until he should look up. At last he did look up, and she said: "Why, I thought you were in Australia, Mr. Annerley. I have been wondering all the time how you were getting on there."

That was all she said, but there was a glad smile on her frank face, which told how pleased she was to welcome him back from Australia. He had thrown aside his papers, and stood beside her.

"Do you know," he said, "you look very tired? And you cannot disguise from me that you have fallen asleep over your work."

She pushed the hair off her face, and laughed. "Is that all you have to say, after your long voyage to Australia?" she said. "I should have thought you would have had some remarks to make about the climate, or your fellow-passengers, or the steamer."

"That may come later," he answered, as he watched her busying herself about making the tea.

"Perhaps you'll clear the table?" she said to him, "and get the cups and sau

cers, and the sugar out of the cupboard. Tell me about yourself; you look a little better. Do you feel better?"

"You know I have no illusions about myself," he said with strange indifference, as he placed the cups and saucers and the sugar-bowl on the table. "I have only a few months to live, and when I got out to Australia, it suddenly struck me what a fool I was to take all the trouble of going there, just for the sake of prolonging my life for a few paltry months. After all, what are a few months in the long-run ? Surely it is better to have the shorter time with the surroundings one cares for, and near the work to which one has given one's whole life. There is some comfort in being near the work, even if one cannot do it."

He held the teapot for her to pour the boiling water into, and then she drew her chair nearer to the table.

"And then," he continued, “I thought how selfish my choice was. There I was, out in Australia, doing no one any good, and at least, if I were at home, I might be giving the best of my help to those who might be glad to have such help. It seemed such an utter waste of my abilities, such an utter waste of all my studying. And then I thought of you.'

She was leaning back in her armchair, and did not look up, even at his last words.

"And then I thought of you," he repeated, "and I remembered how you worked all the day, and how you studied against such odds, with all your highschool teaching to do as well. And the idea seized me, that I should like to help you, and see you safely through your examination this time."

Again she pushed the hair back from her forehead, and still she did not look up. She seemed to be thinking.

"I took your failure to heart, last year," he said, as he balanced his tea-spoon on his finger. "I believe I gave careless lessons, for at times I felt almost too ill to teach well. I never thought that you had a genius for mathematics; but all the same, I felt as though you had failed because of me. And I wish you to pass, because, when you have once taken your degree, or even part of it, your whole position in the teaching world will be altered, and you will not have to drudge."

"Mr. Annerley," she said suddenly, "soon after you had gone, I went to the New College to pay in my fees. I found I had been forestalled. You paid them for me, did you not?"

"Yes," he answered. "I hope I did not vex you. I could not bear to think that you were to be put to the extra expense because of me. But I see you are vexed."

"No," she answered, smiling frankly at him. "If I were vexed at that, I should not be able to understand any kind of poetry and chivalry. You have always been good to me, and I have never been a credit to you. But you must not say that my failure was owing to you, for it was entirely owing to my own stupidity and to my over-fatigue. Still I was disappointed. One always does hope for success. it is a serious thing for any one working for a livelihood to be kept back a whole year. And I lost the chance of an appointment which was to depend on my success in the Intermediate Science."

And

"I did not answer your letter which announced your failure," he said, "because I felt that there was nothing to be said on the subject. But, you know, there are other failures in the world. Look at my own."

"Ah! do not say that," she said eagerly; "no one who has done good work, as you have done, can be said to have failed."

"But I have had no time," he said impatiently.

"What is time?" she asked, smiling sadly. "You yourself said that a few months more or less made no difference."

"But that is when a man is doomed," he said. "When he is doomed, the sooner he goes the better. But, for my own part, I seemed to be played out before I had a chance of playing myself in. It is maddening to have opportunity, and talent, and ambition, and to be denied time and strength. And then to think of the many people in the world who do not make the best use of their strength, and who complain of time hanging heavily on them. Good God! if one might take from them both time and strength!"

He pushed the teacup impatiently away from him. "But there now!" he said. "I hate grumblers, and I have not come to talk about myself. I want to hear what you have been doing in my absence. By the way, you had done one of those problems most disgracefully; indeed I think your mistake there was unpardonable." As he spoke, he showed her the corrections he had made. "You ought to have known better than this," he said; "it is a careless piece of work, enough to dishearten any teacher."

"I do not want to excuse myself," she said; "but lately I have been so worried

and overwrought, that my own private study has suffered in consequence.'

"But you redeemed yourself here," he said, pointing to the problem which had met with his approval. "That is really neatly and elegantly done, enough to encourage any teacher. Ah! I am glad I have come home. I am going to make you help me to fulfil my one remaining ambition."

"And what is that?" she asked.

"My one remaining ambition," he said, half to himself, "is that you should pass your examination. For this purpose, I wish you to accept my help in your work, as long as I am able to give it. I have always had the deepest reverence for you, Miss Hurst, and wish all good things to fall to your share. Such knowledge as I have, I should like to leave behind as a legacy to you, to make life easier for you. Independent natures do not care to be under obligations to any one, I know well; but if you would be generous enough to accept my help, you would make these few remaining weeks very beautiful for me."

Her hand rested gently on his.

"Indeed I accept it," she said quietly. "I am glad you have come back, for your companionship was always a pleasure to me, Mr. Annerley. And then, too, although you knew how to scold me, you also knew how to encourage me. That is what your pupils have always said of you. I think it must be a real comfort to you in your trouble, to know how your pupils have felt for you, and how they have missed you too. The new master at the New College had a very difficult position to fill when he took your place amongst us. And though he did his best for us all, he had not that sympathy which makes teaching a success, nor that enthusiasm which can turn mathematics into real poetry. If you only knew how we had missed you, you must needs have been gratified."

spirited man would have resented. But I never thought it worth while to be agitated about, or disappointed with, men or things. Humanity might be unsatisfactory, but I never found hyperbolæ unsatisfactory. Ellipses were always my consistent friends."

Gertrude Hurst laughed. "Perhaps it all depended on the way in which the hyperbole and ellipses were treated," she said. "Perhaps you understand them better than humanity. With all due respect to you, I prefer humanity."

"We have never been able to agree on that subject," he said, smiling. "It is no use whatever to pin one's faith to humanity; it is much better to believe in hyperbola."

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'Well, like every one else," she said, "you are a contradiction to yourself, for you are always interesting yourself in humanity. My own case, for instance; if you find every one so disappointing, why should you take the trouble to interest yourself in me?"

"You are something quite apart," he answered quietly. "I regard you very much in the way that I do the choicest curves. All things considered, I should think you could not be disappointing."

She shook her head deprecatingly. "To know is the beginning of sorrow," she said, as she turned to her exercise-book.

"Well, I shall not have much time to know," he said with sad humor; "so just allow yourself to remain on the list of the choicest curves. Do you mind me sitting quietly here, while you finish correcting your books? And then, if you are not too tired, we might perhaps have a mathemat ical lesson with which to finish up the evening. And meanwhile I will read one of these treatises on socialism, and try to become interested in all those new theories. No wonder you are over-tired, if you crowd so much into your life. You ought to be content with your own personal work."

"You speak very kindly to me," he answered, as he shook his head; "but there "I cannot go on correcting books if you is really no comfort in what you say. The go on talking like that," she said, "and I only comfort is in work, and I envy those am just engaged on two particularly bad who can do it. If they can do it, they are specimens of Latin prose. You always not to be pitied, even if they have lost irritate me when you pretend to take a everything else that people value, such as narrow view of life. Why, if I had not faith, and love, and friendship. I have interests apart from my own personal work, always thought that as long as one could I should be utterly miserable; and bework, nothing else mattered. The little sides, to be interested in anything outside worries of life passed by me unheeded, one's self, saves one from one's self. It simply because I always said: 'Ah, there is always such a difficulty to get away remains my work.' I believe I was often from one's self; and that has always considered wanting in proper dignity be- seemed to me the loveliest part of Buddh cause I let things slip which any proper-ism. I think it was Buddha who spoke VOL. LXXIX. 4054

LIVING AGE.

"Finish your corrections," he said, "and let us get to the mathematics; for I am on safe ground there, and you cannot dispute what I teach you."

of the 'heresy of individuality.' And then | tralia; and while it was supposed that he the idea of being merged in one great returned to England because he could not whole is so comforting to those who, like keep away any longer from his mathematmyself, are tired of individual existence.ics, the real truth was that he could not I think that those rare moments, when one keep away any longer from Gertrude does not feel one's self, ought to be re- Hurst. She was by no means the most corded as the fairest moments of one's promising of his pupils at the New Collife-red-letter moments, in fact. Music lege, for mathematics were her weakest sometimes has this effect on us." point. But there was something in her frank manner which had won his atten tion; and her eagerness to overcome her difficulties, and her enthusiasm for work, had claimed his interest, and an unconscious kind of sympathy between them had done the rest. Sometimes they chanced to meet on their way to the New College, and as time went on, they had learnt to take a quiet pleasure in each other's companionship, although, after all, it was very little they saw of each other. Whatever his feelings towards her may have become when he got to know her better, his manner was precisely the same as it had always been when she was merely an unpromising pupil, and nothing more. She had no idea that when he saw her looking worried and overworked and sad, he suffered, and would fain have done anything to help her. But he went away to Australia without her guessing anything of this, and even when he came to her last night, his manner would have revealed nothing to her; though the mere fact that he had returned to help her, told her more than any words or any special manner would have told. And Gertrude Hurst began to understand at last.

So the evening passed away, and he trimmed the lamp for her, and pulled down the blinds, and then returned to his post by the fireside. Sometimes he looked round to see how she was getting on, but he made no movement to disturb her, and she could not see the smile of quiet pleasure which was on his worn face. At last, when she was ready for him, he gave her an algebra lesson, and having explained away many of her difficulties, set her some problems to do, and rose to go.

"Thank you for your kindness," she said, as she opened the door for him. "I feel sure that with your help I shall have no difficulty in passing my examination." "Then you will fulfil my only remaining ambition," he said, as he passed down the stairs.

II.

IT was generally understood amongst those who knew Elkin Annerley, that the only thing he really cared about was mathematics, and the teaching of mathematics. He had a very rare gift of teaching, and had always been considered one of the ablest masters at the New College, where he interested himself in an impersonal sort of way in all his pupils, both men and women. But his kindness to them, and his interest in them, began and ended with the mathematics. He was generous of his time to them at the New College, and was always willing to correct any extra exercises which they might wish to bring him. But this being done, he returned to the region to which he was supposed to belong, the region of abstract thought, where the words love, and friendship, and human companionship had no formulæ, and were therefore unknown quantities. So after some time, his very kindness came to be regarded as one of the properties of a strange curve, the eccentricity of which was something out of the ordinary. Perhaps he was eccentric; but, as a matter of fact, he had just done a most ordinary thing in coming home from Aus

The next day, when she was out teaching, she found herself thinking constantly of Elkin Annerley. While she was thinking of him, he called at her lodgings in the Marylebone Road, and left the books that they would require for their studies; and he who had no notion of comfort for himself, looked about the comfortless room, wondering how he might improve it for her. He did not know anything about women, but he had vague notions that they liked cushions and footstools, and choice flowers; and there were none of these luxuries here, but only a little fern, which had answered to Gertrude Hurst's loving care. He bought a cushion, which he fixed in her easy-chair; and he chose some flowers from a florist's near at hand, and arranged them with as much taste as he could command, in a little vase which he found on the mantel-shelf. Then he wrote on a piece of paper that he would call that very evening to give his lesson.

He came punctual to the moment, just as though he were going to give a profes

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