"
The father and the guest smiled at the zeal with which this young
beginner proposed to grapple with the difficulties of human knowledge.
It was fortunate for her that a long series of hard and injudicious
teachers had not already sickened her of learning, and that she brought
a fresh and uncorrupted taste to the work.
Pet was thinking which one of her two dresses (equally faded) she should
wear to school, and what bit of ribbon or trimming she could introduce
in her old bonnet, to improve its general effect. Marcus Wilkeson was
marvelling at the confidence which the inventor and his daughter placed
in him, and at what there was about him to inspire it. Mr. Minford was
congratulating himself on having met with a man so generous and sincere
as this Mr. Wilkeson, and so entirely disinterested, too: "For,"
reasoned the inventor, "he cannot appreciate, as I do, the enormous
value of my discovery, and does not dream that his portion of it will
compensate him for his outlay more than a hundred times over."
The silence was broken by a sound as of heavy boots trying to move
softly on the stairs, and a subsequent modest rap at the door.
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