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 "Ach! The glorious English June," cried Leyden, filling his deep lungs with the fragrant air, "… when it is glorious. Did you ever observe, Miss Moultrie, how very much drizzle is required to make us properly appreciate the sunshine?"

"I should think that you would rather appreciate the drizzle, Dr. Leyden. You must have rather too much sun in your profession."

"Better too much of anything than not enough. But then I like it all; that is the beauty of being a student of natural sciences. One can put one's discomforts on a glass slide and tease them to pieces with a needle. Once when I had a sharp attack of fever I derived the greatest diversion from studying the plasmodia in my blood under the microscope."

"I fancy that you are very seldom ill," replied Virginia. She glanced critically at the well-knit figure and cleanly chiseled features, tanned with the chromic yellow which comes of the reeking blaze of the equator. "I do not think that I ever saw a man who had lived so much in the tropics who appeared in such perfect health; yet Sir Henry tells me that you are usually treating a fever."

Leyden laughed. "It is true that I had a chill last night," he said. "I am but just back from the Orinoco, which is more than most men could say had they been where I have. The man best fitted for my work is not he who appears to be immune, but the one who is subject to light attacks. The other man is apt to die quickly and without warning. I receive my caution with a word of thanks and profit by it; also, being a botanist and having a knowledge of therapeutics, there are few places where 85