Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1876-12-06
THE PROFESSORS PROPOSAL.


THE PROFESSORS PROPOSAL.
Fort George Hotel and watched Miss
Carlyon going slowly down the path to
the lake with a curious feeling ex-
pressed in his eyes. You could have
told, if you had been looking in his
face Just then, that he loved Miss Car
lyon, but didn't know what to do about
it. If she had been piece of gneiss.
or granite. or quartz, he would have
known exactly what to do to come to a
perfect knowledge of her. But he
couldn't analyZe woman. Women
had been curious specimens to him all
his life. He had long ago given up all
hope of ever understanding them. and
had left off studying them. His rocks
and fossils didn't perplex and battle
him as women did. Years ago, when
he had studied them, he had thought
that he understood them, and one
woman in particular. He had taken
more interest in that one particular
specimen for to Prof. Gray every
thing was specimen"-th in all
the others he had ever known. He had
even gone so far as to tell her that
henceforth, if she so Willed ii, his life
should be given up to her and science.
And she had smiled, and looked so
pleased, III her innocent way, that the
poor Professor had kissed her, and sup
posed that some day she would help
him arrange the accommodating speci-
mems in his family cabinet.
But he had supposed" too much.
He found that out when she got mar
ried to dashing young Captain. When
he met her after the marriage, he told
her SO. And she, with one of those
pretty, surprised looks of hers. an
swered his indignant words by saying
that he had never asked her to marry
him.
81 don't know as l did," replied
Prof. Gray. after thinking it over.
But that was what l meant, and
took IL for granted that you understood
mt"
Yes, but you've no right to take
anything FOR granted she had an
swerea, and the Professor had mental
" concluded that she was right; SO far
as women were concerned, at least.
He had got over that old disappont-
menJ hravely. What had seemed to
him pure gold he found out afterward
was merely iron pyriteS nothing more.
And when he found that out, he was
glad that she had failed to understand
him, or not exactly that, for he felt sure
that she h0d understood what he
meant well enough, but glad. rather,
that she had understood it to be more
for her interest to marry the Captain.
The Professor had not met her for
ever SO many yeats until this summer.
And here she was, with child half
grown up to womanhood, who had
taken as great fancy to him as he
ever had to her mother, and persisted
in following him everywhere he went,
and sitting on his knee i'll a way that
was very amusing to Miss Carlyon, if
not to the Professor, who endured the
infection with becoming meeknesS.
Miss Carlyon was quiet little body,
with "A pretty face and most expressive
eyes; and she could talk geology with
the Professor in way that did his
heart good. He had never met a
woman before who could talk with
him for half an hour, on his favorite
subject, without eXhausting her geo.
logical knowledge. But he had found
out that neither an nour, nor a day,
nor a week, exhausted her capabilities
OF talking intelligently on the subject
of the ice-period or the carboniferous
era. AID from the time he found that
out be loved her.
But he didn't know how he was
going 30 tell her SO, if he made up his
mind that he cared enough for her to
marry her. He wanted to be quite
sure that she was worth his love; and
he wanted to be quite as sure that he
cared as much for her as for science.
10 be waited. But this morning he
had concluded that she was Just the
woman he had been waiting for all
these years. She had talked so intel.
Hcently about the silurian deposits,