Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life - Page 51/80

The professor had spared enough time from his bugs and beetles to

notice how blue Kate's eyes were, and how luxurious her hair; then he

had also, with some misgivings, regarded his own in the mirror, with

the unassuring result that his hair was thinning on top and his eyes

looked old through his gold-bowed spectacles.

The discovery did not meet with the indifference one might have

expected on the part of the conscientious entomologist. He fell even

to the depths of reading hair-restoring circulars and he spent

considerable time debating whether he should change his spectacles for

a pince-nez.

The spectacles, however, continued to do their work nobly for the

professor, not only assisting him to make his scientific observations

on the habits of a potato-bug in captivity, but showing him with far

more clearness that Kate Brewster and Lennox Sanderson contrived to

spend a great deal of time in each other's society, and that both

seemed to enjoy the time thus spent.

The professor went back to his beetles, but they palled. The most

gorgeous butterfly ever constructed had not one-tenth the charm for him

that was contained in a glance of Kate Brewster's eyes, or a glimpse of

her golden head as she flitted about the house. And so the autumn

waned.