She was about to turn in disappointment from the enquiry, when the tread of human feet making their way through the matted grass met her ear.

Springing eagerly forward, she soon beheld the outlines of a figure advancing up the eminence, on the side opposite to the camp.

She had already uttered the name of Paul, and was beginning to speak in the hurried and eager voice with which female affection is apt to greet a friend, when, drawing back, the disappointed girl closed her salutation by coldly adding--"I did not expect, Doctor, to meet you at this unusual hour." "All hours and all seasons are alike, my good Ellen, to the genuine lover of nature,"-- returned a small, slightly made, but exceedingly active man, dressed in an odd mixture of cloth and skins, a little past the middle age, and who advanced directly to her side, with the familiarity of an old acquaintance; "and he who does not know how to find things to admire by this grey light, is ignorant of a large portion of the blessings he enjoys." "Very true," said Ellen, suddenly recollecting the necessity of accounting for her own appearance abroad at that unseasonable hour; "I know many who think the earth has a pleasanter look in the night, than when seen by the brightest sunshine." "Ah! Their organs of sight must be too convex! But the man who wishes to study the active habits of the feline race, or the variety, albinos, must, indeed, be stirring at this hour.

I dare say, there are men who prefer even looking at objects by twilight, for the simple reason, that they see better at that time of the day." "And is this the cause why you are so much abroad in the night ?" "I am abroad at night, my good girl, because the earth in its diurnal revolutions leaves the light of the sun but half the time on any given meridian, and because what I have to do cannot be performed in twelve or fifteen consecutive hours.

Now have I been off two days from the family, in search of a plant, that is known to exist on the tributaries of La Platte, without seeing even a blade of grass that is not already enumerated and classed." "You have been unfortunate, Doctor, but--" "Unfortunate!" echoed the little man, sideling nigher to his companion, and producing his tablets with an air in which exultation struggled, strangely, with an affectation of self-abasement.