But I was again roused from my dreamy wonderment by a real form that floated in and sent away all visions of imagination.  “My daughter,” said Mr. Stuart, and I looked up into the same dreamy eyes which had been winning me in the picture.  But these looked far beyond me, over me, perhaps, or through me,—­I could scarcely say which,—­and the mouth below them bent into a welcoming smile.  While she greeted the other guests, I had an opportunity to watch the stately grace of Mr. Stuart’s daughter, who played the part of hostess as one long accustomed to it.

“A queen!” I had exclaimed to myself, as she entered the room, “and my Juno!”

The gentlemen to whom I had been introduced had been summoned earlier, as in a learned committee, discussing the properties of the new discovery.  After the entrance of the ladies, I was requested to lead Miss Stuart to dinner, and sat by her side through the clanging of dishes and a similar clangor of the table-talk of tongues.

“Speaking of light,” said the Professor, turning to me, “why cannot you bring, by your unknown chemical ways, some real sunlight into our rooms, in preference to this metallic gas-light?”

I turned to the windows, before which the servant had just drawn the heavy, curtains still closer, to shut out the gleams of a glowing sunset which had ventured to penetrate between its folds.

“I see your answer,” said Miss Stuart.  “You wonder, as I do, why a little piece of artificial sunlight should astonish us so much more than the cheap sunlight of every day which the children play in on the Common.”

“I think your method, Mr. Desmond,” said the Chemist, “must be some power you have found of concentrating all the rays of a pencil of light, disposing in some way of their heating power.  I should like to know if this is a fluid agent or some solid substance.”

“I should like to see,” interrupted another gentleman, “the anvil where Mr. Desmond forges his beams.  Could not we get up a party, Miss Stuart, an evening-party, to see a little bit of sunlight struck out,—­on a moonshiny night, too?”

“In my lectures on chemistry,” began Mr. Jasper.  He was interrupted by Mr. Stuart.

“You will have to write your lectures over again.  Mr. Desmond has introduced such new ideas upon chemistry that he will give you a chance for a new course.”

“You forget,” said the Chemist, “that the laws of science are the same and immutable.  My lectures, having once been written, are written.  I only see that Mr. Desmond has developed theories which I have myself laid down.  As our friend the Artist will tell us, sunlight is sunlight, wherever you find it, whether you catch it on a carpet or on a lady’s face.”

“But I am quite ashamed,” said Miss Stuart, “that we ladies so seldom have the sunlight on our faces.  I think we might agree to Mr. Green’s proposal to go out somewhere and see where the sunbeams really are made.  We shut them out with our curtains, and turn night into a make-believe day.”