I was as much surprised as delighted when the girl said she was at home, for the house had painters in it, the carpets were up, and everything looked uninhabitable.

The girl came back, after taking my card, and asked me if I would go into the studio, and so took me through a pretty garden into a small building of two rooms, the outer one filled with pictures and books.

I had never heard that Miss Cobbe was an artist, and so I looked around, and was afraid that I had got the wrong Miss Cobbe.

But as I glanced at the table I saw the 'Contemporary Review,' and I took up the first article and read it--by Herbert Spencer.

I had become somewhat interested in a pretty severe criticism of the modes of reasoning of mathematical men, and had perceived that he said the problems of concrete sciences were harder than any of the physical sciences (which I admitted was all true), when a very white dog came bounding in upon me, and I dropped the book, knowing that the dog's mistress must be coming,--and Miss Cobbe entered.