'You will be very tired of hearing those spelled over for ever; they have some nicer books at the national school.'
'What is the name of them? Do you see any of them here?'
'No, I don't think I do, but I can't wait to look now. I must write some letters. You had better put them together a little. If you were to sort them, you would know what is there. Now, what a mess they are in.'
Ethel could not deny it, and began to deal them out in piles, looking somewhat more fitting, but still felt neglected and aggrieved, at no one being at leisure but Harry, who was not likely to be of any use to her.
Presently she heard the study door open, and hoped; but though it was Richard who entered the room, he was followed by Tom, and each held various books that boded little good to her. Miss Winter had, much to her own satisfaction, been relieved from the charge of Tom, whose lessons Richard had taken upon himself; and thus Ethel had heard so little about them for a long time past, that even in her vexation and desire to have them over, she listened with interest, desirous to judge what sort of place Tom might be likely to take in school.
She did not perceive that this made Richard nervous and uneasy. He had a great dislike to spectators of Latin lessons; he never had forgotten an unlucky occasion, some years back, when his father was examining him in the Georgics, and he, dull by nature, and duller by confusion and timidity, had gone on rendering word for word--enim for, seges a crop, lini of mud, urit burns, campum the field, avenae a crop of pipe, urit burns it; when Norman and Ethel had first warned him of the beauty of his translation by an explosion of laughing, when his father had shut the book with a bounce, shaken his head in utter despair, and told him to give up all thoughts of doing anything--and when Margaret had cried with vexation. Since that time, he had never been happy when any one was in earshot of a lesson; but to-day he had no escape--Harry lay on the rug reading, and Ethel sat forlorn over her books on the sofa. Tom, however, was bright enough, declined his Greek nouns irreproachably, and construed his Latin so well, that Ethel could not help putting in a word or two of commendation, and auguring the third form. 'Do let him off the parsing, Ritchie,' said she coaxingly--'he has said it so well, and I want you so much.'
'I am afraid I must not,' said Richard; who, to her surprise, did not look pleased or satisfied with the prosperous translation; 'but come, Tom, you shan't have many words, if you really know them.'
Tom twisted and looked rather cross, but when asked to parse the word viribus, answered readily and correctly.
'Very well, only two more--affuit?'
'Third person singular, praeter perfect tense of the verb affo, affis, affui, affere, gabbled off Tom with such confidence, that though Ethel gave an indignant jump, Richard was almost startled into letting it pass, and disbelieving himself. He remonstrated in a somewhat hesitating voice. 'Did you find that in the dictionary?' said he; 'I thought affui came from adsum.'
'Oh, to be sure, stupid fool of a word, so it does!' said Tom hastily. 'I had forgot--adsum, ades, affui, adesse.'
Richard said no more, but proposed the word oppositus.
'Adjective.'
Ethel was surprised, for she remembered that it was, in this passage, part of a passive verb, which Tom had construed correctly, 'it was objected,' and she had thought this very creditable to him, whereas he now evidently took it for opposite; however, on Richard's reading the line, he corrected himself and called it a participle, but did not commit himself further, till asked for its derivation.
'From oppositor.'
'Hallo!' cried Harry, who hitherto had been abstracted in his book, but now turned, raised himself on his elbow, and, at the blunder, shook his thick yellow locks, and showed his teeth like a young lion.
'No, now, Tom, pay attention,' said Richard resignedly. 'If you found out its meaning, you must have seen its derivation.'
'Oppositus,' said Tom, twisting his fingers, and gazing first at Ethel, then at Harry, in hopes of being prompted, then at the ceiling and floor, the while he drawled out the word with a whine, 'why, oppositus from op-posor.'
'A poser! ain't it?' said Harry.
'Don't, Harry, you distract him,' said Richard. 'Come, Tom, say at once whether you know it or not--it is of no use to invent.'
'From op-' and a mumble.
'What? I don't hear--op--'
Tom again looked for help to Harry, who made a mischievous movement of his lips, as if prompting, and, deceived by it, he said boldly, 'From op-possum.'
'That's right! let us hear him decline it!' cried Harry, in an ecstasy. 'Oppossum, opottis, opposse, or oh- pottery!'
'Harry,' said Richard, in a gentle reasonable voice, 'I wish you would be so kind as not to stay, if you cannot help distracting him.'
And Harry, who really had a tolerable share of forbearance and consideration, actually obeyed, contenting himself with tossing his book into the air and catching it again, while he paused at the door to give his last unsolicited assistance. 'Decline oppossum you say. I'll tell you how: 0-possum re-poses up a gum tree. 0-pot-you-I will, says the 0-posse of Yankees, come out to ketch him. Opossum poses them and declines in 0-pot-esse by any manner of means of o- potting-di-do-dum, was quite oppositum-oppotitu, in fact, quite contrairy.'
Richard, with the gravity of a victim, heard this sally of schoolboy wit, which threw Ethel back on the sofa in fits of laughing, and declaring that the Opossum declined, not that he was declined; but, in the midst of the disturbance thus created, Tom stepped up to her, and whispered, 'Do tell me, Ethel!'
'Indeed I shan't,' said she. 'Why don't you say fairly if you don't know?'
He was obliged to confess his ignorance, and Richard made him conjugate the whole verb opponor from beginning to end, in which he wanted a good deal of help.
Ethel could not help saying, 'How did you find out the meaning of that word, Tom, if you didn't look out the verb?'
'I--don't know,' drawled Tom, in the voice, half sullen, half piteous, which he always assumed when out of sorts.
'It is very odd,' she said decidedly; but Richard took no notice, and proceeded to the other lessons, which went off tolerably well, except the arithmetic, where there was some great misunderstanding, into which Ethel did not enter for some time. When she did attend, she perceived that Tom had brought a right answer, without understanding the working of the sum, and that Richard was putting him through it. She began to be worked into a state of dismay and indignation at Tom's behaviour, and Richard's calm indifference, which made her almost forget 'Jane Sparks', and long to be alone with Richard; but all the world kept coming into the room, and going out, and she could not say what was in her mind till after dinner, when, seeing Richard go up into Margaret's room, she ran after him, and entering it, surprised Margaret, by not beginning on her books, but saying at once, 'Ritchie, I wanted to speak to you about Tom. I am sure he shuffled about those lessons.'
'I am afraid he does,' said Richard, much concerned.
'What, do you mean that it is often so?'
'Much too often,' said Richard; 'but I have never been able to detect him; he is very sharp, and has some underhand way of preparing his lessons that I cannot make out.'
'Did you know it, Margaret?' said Ethel, astonished not to see her sister looked shocked as well as sorry.
'Yes,' said Margaret, 'Ritchie and I have often talked it over, and tried to think what was to be done.'
'Dear me! why don't you tell papa? It is such a terrible thing!'
'So it is,' said Margaret, 'but we have nothing positive or tangible to accuse Tom of; we don't know what he does, and have never caught him out.'
'I am sure he must have found out the meaning of that oppositum in some wrong way--if he had looked it out, he would only have found opposite. Nothing but opponor could have shown him the rendering which he made.'
'That's like what I have said almost every day,' said Richard, 'but there we are--I can't get any further.'
'Perhaps he guesses by the context,' said Margaret.
'It would be impossible to do so always,' said both the Latin scholars at once.
'Well, I can't think how you can take it so quietly,' said Ethel. 'I would have told papa the first moment, and put a stop to it. I have a great mind to do so, if you won't.
'Ethel, Ethel, that would never do!' exclaimed Margaret, 'pray don't. Papa would be so dreadfully grieved and
