60 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stop her studying ! " Armed with such authority, I should have done 

 it, and how do we know but she might have been with us now if I 

 had done so ? 



But, she worked on till the 25th of December. Then she came 

 home, and said decidedly she would study no more till she was well. 



We were rejoiced at her decision ; for, although we were anxious 

 that her education should be completed and thorough, we had felt for 

 a long time that her health was becoming impaired. Still we were 

 sure she had a good constitution, and thought that would carry her 

 through. She did not grow thin, but stout and pale, and such a trans- 

 parent pallor, that, now I think of it, I wonder all who looked at her 

 did not see that her blood was turning to water. Her sweet and lovely 

 soul was so uncomplaining, and her smile always so bright, that we 

 never for a moment thought she could fade and die. 



She brightened up somewhat for the next month, but still did not 

 " get well." About the last of January her limbs swelled so much that, 

 in haste, I rushed to the doctor. Then he said her kidneys were con- 

 gested, and that Bright's fatal disease was her malady. All that de- 

 spairing love could do was done now. In five short weeks we laid her 

 in Greenwood. Whatever was the form of the disease from which she 

 suffered, I am convinced that what she did have was brought on by 

 incessant study when she should have rested, and that it was fixed at 

 the time that she got the severe chills in May, 1871. 



She was by no means a frail girl when she entered the institute. 

 She was tall, finely formed, with a full, broad chest, and musical organs 

 of great compass. Her bust was not flat, neither was it as full as it 

 might have been. Her features were not too large. She had brown 

 eyes, brown hair, a very sweet and pleasing face. With every indi- 

 cation at first of strength and a good constitution, she fell at last a 

 victim to want of sense in parents and teachers, and shall I say ? 

 physician too. 







THE RESPIRATION OF PLANTS. 



By EMILE ALGLAVE. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE REVUE SOIENTIFIQUE, BY J. FITZGERALD, A. M. 



I. 



HE functional contrast between the two organic worlds of plants 

 -JL- and animals was, till lately, the groundwork of all scientific specu- 

 lations. The labors of the most illustrious men of science had confirmed 

 this theory ; and then, too, it was in accord with all the known facts. 



Plants, it was held, grow in order to supply animals with food, and 

 to make life possible for them ; the activities of vegetal life produced 



T 



