"Noabout your eyes." "You are very frivolousfor a scientist," she said, scornfully; "please subdue your enthusiasm and bring me some wood. This re is almost out." When I had brought the wood, she presented me with a pail of hot water and pointed at the dishes on the breakfast-table. "Never!" I cried, revolted. "Then I suppose I must do them" She looked pensively at her scorched nger-tip, and, pursing up her red lips, blew a gentle breath to cool it. "I'll do the dishes," I said. Splashing and slushing the cups and saucers about in the hot water, I reected upon the events of the last few days. The dog, stupeed by unwonted abundance of food, lay in the sunshine, sleeping the sleep of repletion; the pretty stenographer, all rosy from her culinary exertions, was removing the pies and setting them in neat rows to cool.

"There," she said, with a sigh; "now I will dry the dishes for you.... You didn't mention the fact, when you engaged me, that I was also expected to do general housework." "I didn't engage you," I said, maliciously; "you engaged me, you know." She regarded me disdainfully, nose uptilted. "How thoroughly disagreeable you can be!" she said. "Dry your own dishes. I'm going for a stroll." "May I join" "You may not! I shall go so far that you cannot possibly discover me." I watched her forestward progress; she sauntered for about thirty yards along the lake and presently sat down in plain sight under a huge live-oak. A few moments later I had completed my task as general bottle-washer, and I cast about for something to occupy me. First I approached and politely caressed the satiated dog. He woke up, regarded me with dully meditative eyes, yawned, and went to sleep again. Never a op of tail to indicate

Chilled by my reception, I moused about for a while, poking into boxes and bundles; then raised my head and inspected the landscape. Through the vista of trees the pink shirtwaist of the pretty stenographer glimmered like a rose blooming in the wilderness. From whatever point I viewed the prospect that pink spot seemed to intrude; I turned my back and examined the jungle, but there it was repeated in a hundred pink blossoms among the massed thickets; I looked up into the tree-tops, where pink mosses spotted the palms; I looked out over the lake, and I saw it in my mind's eye pinker than ever. It was certainly a case of pink-eye. "I'll go for a stroll, too; it's a free country," I muttered. After I had strolled in a complete circle I found myself within three feet of a pink shirt-waist. "I beg your pardon," I said; "I had no inten" "I thought you were never coming," she said, amiably.

"How is your nger?" I asked. She held it up. I took it gingerly; it was smooth and faintly rosy at the tip. "Does it hurt?" I inquired. "Dreadfully. Your hands feel so cool" After a silence she said, "Thank you, that has cooled the burning." "I am determined," said I, "to expel the re from your nger if it takes hours and hours." And I seated myself with that intention. For a while she talked, making innocent observations concerning the tropical foliage surrounding us. Then silence crept in between us, accentuated by the brooding stillness of the forest. "I am afraid your hands are growing tired," she said, considerately. I denied it. Through the vista of palms we could see the lake, blue as a violet, sparkling with silvery sunshine. In the intense quiet the splash of leaping mullet sounded distinctly. Once a tall crane stalked into view among the sedges; once an unseen alligator shook the silence with his deep, hollow roaring. Then the stillness of the wilderness grew more