“Is this all the walking party?” exclaimed Mr. Ernescliffe, as Miss Winter, Flora, and Norman gathered in the hall.
“Harry won’t go because of Ethel’s spectacles,” answered Flora; “and Mary and he are inseparable, so they are gone with Hector to have a shipwreck in the field.”
“And your other sisters?”
“Margaret has ratted—she is going to drive out with mamma,” said Norman; “as to Etheldred the Unready, I’ll run up and hurry her.”
In a moment he was at her door. “Oh! Norman, come in. Is it time?”
“I should think so! You’re keeping every one waiting.”
“Oh, dear! go on; only just tell me the past participle of ‘offero’, and I’ll catch you up.”
“‘Oblatus.’”
“Oh, yes, how stupid. The ‘a’ long or short? Then that’s right. I had such a line in my head, I was forced to write it down. Is not it a capital subject this time?”
“The devotion of Decius? Capital. Let me see!” said Norman, taking up a paper scribbled in pencil, with Latin verses. “Oh, you have taken up quite a different line from mine. I began with Mount Vesuvius spouting lava like anything.”