HIS INTRODUCTION TO HIS "ALTER EGO." 143 



revealed glimpses of the ability and power that were hidden 

 beneath his quiet, unattractive, smile-provoking exterior. 



That one "Yes, I wu'd" was the turning point in John 

 Duncan's life ; his first introduction to the happy severities 

 of pure Natural Science; and the birth of a new enthusiasm, 

 that was henceforth to be the labour of his leisure, the 

 solace of his sorrows, and the sweetener of his life till its 

 close, after forty-five years of rare devotion to science for 

 its own sake. 



John asked to be shown through the garden, a pleasure 

 he had always cultivated among his numerous gardening 

 friends. Being busy with his men, and desirous of finishing 

 up matters before the coming of " the big folks," Charles 

 said that he could not attend upon him at that time, but 

 that he would be glad to see him the following evening. 

 They parted, and John held on his way down the avenue 

 to Peter Marnock's, with hopeful wonderment in his silent 

 heart, as to what sort of man his new acquaintance would 

 prove, and still more what kind of thing this new science of 

 Botany was ; and he viewed the familiar flowers he passed 

 with new anticipations of more intimate knowledge. 



How much, how very much, is summed up and concen- 

 trated in certain moments of the lives of all men ! The 

 tide of Duncan's life had just swelled to that auspicious 

 height that leads on to fortune, in its highest sense. Had he 

 cast his own horoscope, by aid of his astrological studies, 

 he would have found that he had reached that critical 

 epoch when the omnipotent influences of the past eternities 

 with a reality and dominion that astrology never dreamt 

 of had effected that conjunction which ruled his destiny, as 

 it does those of us all, the humblest equally with the highest. 



