There came such a pang to Elizabeth’s heart, such a gush to her eyes, that she hid her face on her knees and heard nothing of what her handmaid said for a long time after.  If Clam talked, she had the talk all to herself; and when Elizabeth at last raised her head, her handmaiden was standing on the other side of the fireplace looking at her, and probably making up her mind that she wanted ‘fixing’ very much.  There was no further discussion of the subject, however; for Miss Haye immediately called for her bonnet and veil, wrapped herself in a light scarf and went out.  The door had hardly closed upon her when the bell rang again, and she came running up-stairs to her room.

“Clam, get me the newspaper.”

“What news, Miss ’Lizabeth?”

“All the newspapers —­ every one you can find; —­ yesterday’s and to-day’s, or the day before.”

Much wondering, Clam hunted the house and brought the fruits of her search; and much more wondering, she saw her mistress spend one hour in closely poring over the columns of page after page; she who never took five minutes a day to read the papers.  At last a little bit was carefully cut from one of those Clam had brought up, and Elizabeth again prepared herself to go forth.

“If it had been Mr. Winthrop, now, who was doing that,” said Clam, “he’d have took off his hat most likely, and sat down to it.  How you do look, Miss ’Lizabeth!”

“Mr. Winthrop and I are two different people,” said Elizabeth, hurriedly putting on the one glove she had drawn off.

“Must grow a little more like before you’ll be one and the same,” observed Clam.

Elizabeth let down her veil over her face and went out again.

With a quick nervous step she went, though the day was warm, making no delay and suffering no interruption; till she reached the University where Professor Herder made his daily and nightly abode.  The professor was attending one of his classes.  Elizabeth asked to be shewn to his room.

She felt as if she was on a queer errand, as she followed her conductor up the wide stone stairs and along the broad corridors, where the marks were evidently of only man’s use and habitation, and now and then a man’s whistle or footstep echoed from the distance through the halls.  But she went on swiftly, from one corridor to another, till the guide opened a door and she stepped out from the public haunts of life to a bit of quite seclusion.

It was a pleasant enough place that Mr. Herder called home.  A large, airy, light, high-ceiled apartment, where plainly even to a stranger’s eye, the naturalist had grouped and bestowed around him all the things he best liked to live among.  Enormous glass cases, filled with the illustrations of science, and not less of the philosopher’s investigating patience, lined all the room; except where dark-filled shelves of books ran up between them from the floor to the ceiling.  A pleasant cloth-covered table,