It is interesting to trace the steps by which Evadne advanced: one item of
knowledge accidentally acquired compelling her to seek another, as in the
case of some disease mentioned in a story-book, the nature of which she
could not comprehend without studying the construction of the organ it
affected. But haphazard seems to have determined her pursuits much more
than design as a rule. Some people in after life, who liked her views,
said they saw the guiding hand of Providence directing her course from the
first; but those who opposed her said it was the devil; and others again,
in idleness or charity, or the calm neutrality of indifference, set it all
down to the Inevitable, a fashionable first cause at this time, which is
both comprehensive, convenient, and inoffensive, since it may mean
anything, and so suits itself to everybody's prejudices.
But she certainly made her first acquaintance with anatomy and physiology
without design of her own. Her mother sent her up to a lumber room one day
to hunt through an old box of books for a story she wanted her to read to
the children, and the box happened to contain some medical works, which
Evadne peeped into during her search. A plate first attracted her
attention, and then she read a little to see what the plate meant, and
then she read a little more because the subject fascinated her, and the
lucid language of a great scientific man, certain of his facts, satisfied
her, and carried her on insensibly. She continued standing until one leg
tired, then she rested on the other; then she sat on the hard edge of the
box, and finally she subsided on to the floor, in the dust, where she was
found hours later, still reading.
"My dear child, where _have_ you been?" her mother exclaimed
irritably, when at last she appeared. "I sent you to get a book to read to
the children."
"There it is, mother--'The Gold Thread'" Evadne answered. "But I cannot
read to the children until after their tea. They were at their lessons
this morning, and we are all going out this afternoon." She had neither
forgotten the children nor the time they wanted their book, which was
eminently characteristic. She never did forget other people's interests,
however much she might be absorbed by the pleasure of her own pursuits.
"And I found three other books, mother, that I should like to have; may
I?" she continued. "They are all about our bones and brains, and the
circulation of the blood, and digestion. It says in one of them that
muriatic acid, the chemical agent by which the stomach dissolves the food,
is probably obtained from muriate of soda, which is common salt contained
in the blood. Isn't that interesting? And it says that pleasure--not
excitement, you know--is the result of the action of living organs, and it
goes on to explain it. Shall I read it to you?"
"My dear child, what nonsense have you got hold of now?" Mrs. Frayling
exclaimed, laughing.
"It is all here, mother," Evadne remonstrated, tapping her books. "Do look
at them."
Mrs. Frayling turned over a few pages with dainty fingers: "Tracing from
without inward, the various coverings of the brain are," she read in one.
"The superior extremity consists of the shoulder, the arm, the forearm,
and the hand," she saw in another. "Dr. Harley also confirms the opinion
of M. Chaveau that the sugar is not destroyed in any appreciable quantity,
during its passage through the tissues," she learned from the third. "Oh,
how nasty!" she ejaculated, alluding to the dust on the cover. "And what a
state you are in yourself! You seem to have a perfect mania for grubbing
up old books. What do you want with them? You cannot possibly understand
them. Why, _I_ can't! It is all vanity, you know. Here, take them
away."
"But, mother, I want to keep them. They can't do me any harm if I don't
understand them."
"You really _are_ tiresome, Evadne," her mother rejoined. "It is
quite bad taste to be so persistent."
"I am sorry, mother; I apologize. But I can read them, I suppose, as you
don't see anything objectionable in them."
"Don't _you_ see, dear child, that I am trying to write a letter? How
do you suppose I can do so while you stand chattering there at my elbow!
You won't understand the books, but you are too obstinate for anything,
and you had better take them and try. I don't expect to hear anything more
about them," she added complacently, as she resumed her letter. Nor did
she, but she felt the effect of them strongly in after years.
When Evadne went out for a ride with three of her sisters that afternoon
her mind was full to overflowing of her morning studies, and she would
liked to have shared such interesting information with them, but they
discouraged her.
"Isn't it curious," she began, "our skulls are not all in one piece when
we're born--"
"I call it simply _nasty_" said Julia. She was the one who screamed
at a mouse.
"You'll be a bore if you don't mind," cried Evelyn, who monopolized the
conversation, as a rule.
Barbara politely requested her to "Shurrup!" a word of the boys which she
permitted herself to borrow in the exuberance of her spirits and the
sanctity of private life whenever Evadne threatened, as on the present
occasion, to be "_too_ kind."
Evadne turned back then and left them, not because they vexed her, but
because she wanted to have her head to the wind and her thick brown hair
blown back out of her eyes, and full leisure to reflect upon her last
acquisition as she cantered home happily.