The Mummy and Miss Nitocris

on's walk had occupied about a couple of hours. His strange experiences had,

vely May morning. She lay down in a hammock chair in the shade of a fine old cedar at the bottom of the lawn, and began to read, and soon she began to dream. The news in the papers, even the most responsible of them, had been v

rare among learned women, the gift of humour. Long ago, this girl had taken the fever in Egypt, and died of it; but before she died she wrote a book of poems and verses, which, though long forgotten-if ever known-by t

a few moments and then lifted and looked over the law

comes an id

and a stare,

, scientifi

f Selecti

e he hasn'

t the How a

with an ama

es much bet

the more da

by song win

that with A

in Homo s

in Europe, were anything more than what Newton called himself-a little child picking up pebbles and grains of sand on the shore of a boundless and fathomless ocean, and calling them knowledge. I'm not quite sure that that's correct, but it's something like it. Still, tha

ned, and a man in a panama hat, Norfolk jacket and knickerbock

minine could have been imagined than she presented as she walked slowly across the lawn to meet the man whom the Law of Selection had designated as h

the word, but it was strong, honest, and open-just the sort of face, in short, to match the broad shoulders, the long,

quiet air of restrained strength, of the instinctive habit of command which somehow or other does not distinguish any other fighting man in the world in quite the same degree. His

olutely boyish in their anticipation of sheer delight as she approached; and then, after one glance at her

h literally sent a shiver-a real physical shiver-thr

tion and she had answered it according to his heart's desire, had refused to meet his. "Let's have it out at once. It's a lot better to be shot throug

she said this Miss Nitocris Marmion, B.Sc., stamped her foot on the turf

rofessor has said 'No.' In other words, he has decided that his learned and lovely daughter shall not, as

piteously, dropping into a big wicker armchair by

elt his heart turning to water within him. But her highly trained intellect ca

t. It's this theory of heredity of his-this scientific faith-bigotry, I call it, for it is just the same to him as Catholicism was to the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. In fact, I told him the other nigh

, not because he wanted to know, but because t

y. You know I care for you, and I always shall, but I cannot-I dare not-disobey my father. I owe all that I ever had to him. He has been father, mother, teacher, friend, companion-everyth

im. "You couldn't honestly do anything else, and I know the shortest way to make you hate me would be to ask you to do that something else. But still," he went on, thrusting

er as he is in other things, poor Dad is simply a fanatic in this, and-well, if he did condescend to explain, I'm afraid you might mistake what he would think the correct s

f what mortals are pleased to call their philosophy. Professor Marmion was a very great man-some men said he was the greatest scientist of

to her eyes. He picked her up bodily, as he might have picked a child of seven up, put her protesting hands aside, and slowly and d

, for the prese

ned and walked with quick, angry strides across the lawn and round the semi-circular carria

gate he came face to f

Merrill, with a motion o

had been strained for some considerable time now. "I presume you have been to the house. I am sorry

to his duty to his country, that had brought the young sailor to his house. Twenty-four hours ago he would not have noticed such a trifle: but it was no trifle now; for to hi

uppose?" he continued, w

I called to learn my fate, and your daughter has told me. I presume that your decis

onally and socially, of course, it would be impossible for me to have the slightest objection to you. In fact, apart from your execrable fighting profession, I like you; but otherwise, as you know, I cannot help looking at you as the survival of an age of barbarism, a hark-back of

she is resolved to abide by it; I should be something less than a man if I attempted to alter

d with teeth clenched and eyes fixed straight in front

him for a few moments and t

would be the negation of the belief and teaching of more than half a lifetime. I hope the poor girl won't take it too keenly to heart. I'm afraid he seems rather hard hit, poor chap, bu