domain? And yet I cannot conceive of Miss Maclean being out of place at a duchess's table."

He dropped into a chair, clasped his hands behind his head, and spoke aloud almost indignantly in his perplexity.

"How can a provincial shop-girl be a woman of the world? And yet, upon my soul! Miss Maclean seems to me to come nearer Melville's description than any woman I ever knew. Alack-a-day! I must be besotted indeed. Oh, damn that examination!"

Ralph returned to his books, however, and tried hard to shut out all farther thoughts of Mona that night.

CHAPTER XXXIIL

CARBOLIC !

"Holloa, Jones! going home?"

"I am going to lunch; I may be back in the afternoon." "Please yourself, my dear fellow, but if you don't finish that axilla to-day, I shall be under the painful necessity of reflecting the pectorals, and proceeding with the thorax, at 9 A.M. to-morrow."

"Oh, I say, Dudley, that is too bad."

"I fail to see it. You have had one day too long as it is."

"But you know I did cut my finger."

"I'm. I have not just the profoundest faith in that cut finger. You know it did happen on the day of the footballmatch."

The boy laughed.

"And Collett will never manage that

sole of the foot without you," he said.

"Collett must." Dudley smiled up at the eager face that was bending over his dissection. "I only undertook to find

the cutaneous branch of the internal plantar," and he lifted the nerve affectionately on the handle of his scalpel. "Come, Jones, fire away. will do it."

Ce n'est pas la mer à boire.

Half an hour

"Oh, I say! It would take me four hours. You know, Dudley, there is such a lot of reading on the axilla. I am all in a muddle as it is. I'll sit up half the night reading it, if you will give me another day."

"Very sorry, old man. Ars longa. I must get on with my thorax. It will do you far more good to read in the dissecting-room. Preconceived ideas are a mistake. Get a good lunch, and come back. That's your scalpel, I think, Collett."

"Oh, bother! I only wish I had ideas of any kind! I wish to goodness somebody would demonstrate the whole. thing to me, and finish the dissection as he goes along!"

"I will do that with pleasure, if you like, to-morrow. The gain will be mine-and perhaps it will be the best thing you can do now. But don't play that little game too often, if you mean to be an anatomist.”

"I don't," cried the boy vehemently. "I wish to heaven I need never see this filthy old hole again!"

Dudley glanced round the fine airy room, as he stood with his hands under the tap.

"I know that feeling well," he said.

"You, Dudley! Why, somebody said the other day that the very dust of the dissecting-room was dear to you."

"So it is, I think," said Ralph, smiling. "But it was very different in the days when I stroked the nettle in the gingerly fashion you are doing now."

"You mean that you think I should like it better if I really tucked into it," said the boy ruefully.

"I don't think at all; I know. then."

9 A.M. to-morrow sharp,

Dudley stepped out briskly into the raw damp air. The mud was thick under foot, and the whole aspect of the world was depressing to the hard-worked student. One by one

the familiar furrows took possession of his brow, and his step slackened gradually, till it kept pace with the dead march of his thoughts. He was within a stone's-throw of his rooms, when a dashing mail-phaeton came up behind him. A good horse was always a source of pleasure to him, and he noted, point by point, the beauties of the two fine bays, which, bespattered with foam, were chafing angrily at the delay caused by some block in the street. Suddenly Ralph bethought himself of Melville's story about the "irony of fate," and he glanced with amused curiosity at the occupant of the carriage.

There was no irony here. The reins lay firmly but easily in the hands of a man who was well in keeping with the horses, fine-looking, of military bearing, with ruddy face, and curly white hair. He, too, seemed annoyed at the block, for there was a heavy frown on his brow.

At last the offending cart turned down a side-street, and the bays dashed on. Immediately in front of them was a swift heavy dray, and behind it, as is the fashion among gamins, sublimely regardless of all the dangers of his position, hung a very small boy. The dray stopped for a moment, then suddenly lumbered on, and before either Dudley or the driver of the phaeton had noticed the child, he had fallen from his precarious perch, and lay under the hoofs of the bays.

With one tremendous pull the phaeton was brought to a standstill, while Dudley and the groom rushed forward to extricate the child.

"I think he is more frightened "but my rooms are close at hand. him in and examine him carefully.

than hurt," said Ralph, If you like, I will take I am a doctor."

"Upon my soul, I am very much obliged to you! I am leaving town for the Riviera to-night, and it would be confoundedly awkward to be detained by a business of this kind. Step up, will you?

after you are in."

Charles will hand up the child

The boy lay half stunned, drawing little sobbing breaths.

When they reached the house, Dudley handed the latch-key to his companion, and, raising the boy in his strong arms, he carried him up the steps.

"Bless me, you are as good as a woman!" said the man of the world, in amused admiration, as he opened the door. "It was uncommonly lucky for me that you happened to be passing."

Dudley showed his new acquaintance into his snuggery, while he examined the boy. The snuggery was a room worth seeing. There was nothing showy or striking about it, but every picture, every book, every bit of pottery, had been lovingly and carefully chosen, and the tout ensemble spoke well for the owner of the room.

"A man of culture clearly," said the visitor, after making a leisurely survey; "and what a life for him, by Gad!— examining dirty little gamins! He can't be poor. What the deuce does he do it for?"

"He is all right," said Dudley emphatically, re-entering the room. "He has been much interested in my manikin, and at the present moment is tucking vigorously into breadand-marmalade. I have assured him that ninety-nine drivers out of a hundred would have gone right over him. You certainly are to be congratulated on the way you pulled those horses up."

"Do you think so? I am very glad to hear it. Gad! I thought myself it was all over with the little chap. The fact is-it is a fine state of affairs if I can't manage a horse at my time of life; but I confess my thoughts were pretty far afield at the moment. It is most annoying. I have taken my berth on the Club Train for this afternoon, and I find I shall have to go without seeing my niece. I wrote to make an appointment, but it seems she has left her former rooms. By the way, you are a doctor. Do you happen to know any of the lady medical students?"

Dudley shook his head. "I am sorry I have not that honour," he said.

His visitor laughed harshly.

"You don't believe in all that, eh?"

"Oh, I don't say that. I am very far from being conser vative on the subject of women's work. I am inclined on the whole to think that women have souls, and, that being so, and the age of brute force being past, it is to my mind a natural corollary that they should choose their own work."

"I don't see that at all, sir. I don't see that at all," said the elderly gentleman, throwing himself into a chair, and talking very warmly. "Souls! What have souls got to do with it, I should like to know? Can they do it without becoming blunted? That is the question."

"I confess I think it is a strange life for a woman to choose, but I know one or two women-one certainly—who would make far better doctors than I ever shall."

"Oh, they are a necessity! Mind, sir, I believe womendoctors are a necessity; so it is a mercy they want to do it; but why the devil should my niece take it up? She is not the sort of woman you mean at all. To think that a finelooking, gentle, gifted girl, who might marry any man she liked, and move in any society she chose, should spend her days in an atmosphere of what is the smell in this room, sir?"

Dudley laughed. "Carbolic, I suppose," he said. “I use a good deal of it.”

"Carbolic! Well, think of a beautiful woman finding it necessary to live in an atmosphere of-carbolic!"

"But

Dudley laughed again, his visitor's voice was so expressive. "There are minor drawbacks, of course," he said. I strongly agree with you, that there is a part of our work which ought to be in the hands of women; and I, for one, will gladly hand it over to them."

"I believe you! Oh, when all is said, it's grimy work, doctoring-grimy work!"

"You know, of course, that I join issue with you there." "You don't find it so?"

"God forbid!"

"Tell me," said the stranger eagerly, running his eye