She folded up the paper carefully and handed it to Amber saying:
"There is not only a definition but a whole treatise for you, my dear Amber. It is for you alone, however, and it is not written to dissuade you from your experiment."
"My experiment? What is my experiment?" cried Amber.
Josephine looked at her and smiled vaguely, benevolently.
"The experiment of feeding _carnivora_ on confectionery," said she.
"You mean that--that---- Oh, no; you cannot say that, whatever happens, I have not improved them all."
"I would not dare even to think so. If, however, you succeed in convincing any two of them that you are quite right in marrying the third you will have proved conclusively that confectionery is a most satisfactory diet."
"I don't believe that any one of the three wishes to marry me. Not one of them has even so much hinted at that. Oh, no; we are far too good friends ever to become lovers. They are all nice and are getting nicer every day."
"I really think that they are. At any rate you were born to try experiments. You can no more avoid experimenting than your father can. Here comes an elementary principle with an empty notebook in his hand."
A youth of twenty-four or twenty-five with a good figure and a pleasantly plain face and unusually large hands and feet sauntered up--the members of the class were trooping out, some of them handing in their time studies to Mr. Richmond who stood at the head of the room.
"How do you do, Miss West? How are you, Amber?" he said. "I saw you working like a gas-engine, Miss West. What on earth could you find to say on that subject?"
"What subject, Mr. Guy Overton?" said Josephine.
The young man looked puzzled--pleasantly puzzled.
"The subject you were writing about," he replied cautiously.
"You don't even remember the title of the time study," said Amber severely.
"I don't," he cried defiantly. "What would be the good of remembering it? I saw at once that it was all Thomas."
"All Thomas--all Tommy rot. You didn't bother yourself writing a big heap Injin about it yourself, my fine lady."
"That was because she is really scientific in her methods, Mr. Overton," said Josephine. "She doesn't write out the result of an experiment until she has analysed the residuum in the crucible."