After some whispered gabbling, assisted by the beating of his fist on the table, Tom returned the book.
“Mascula nomina in a,” he began.
“No, Tom,” said Maggie, “that doesn’t come next. It’s Nomen non creskens genittivo——”
“Creskens genittivo!” exclaimed Tom, with a derisive laugh, for Tom had learned this omitted passage for his yesterday’s lesson, and a young gentleman does not require an intimate or extensive acquaintance with Latin before he can feel the pitiable absurdity of a false quantity. “Creskens genittivo! What a little silly you are, Maggie!”
“Well, you needn’t laugh, Tom, for you didn’t remember it at all. I’m sure it’s spelt so; how was I to know?”
“Phee-e-e-h! I told you girls couldn’t learn Latin. It’s Nomen non crescens genitivo.”
“Very well, then,” said Maggie, pouting. “I can say that as well as you can. And you don’t mind your stops. For you ought to stop twice as long at a semicolon as you do at a comma, and you make the longest stops where there ought to be no stop at all.”
“Oh, well, don’t chatter. Let me go on.”
They were presently fetched to spend the rest of the evening in the drawing-room, and Maggie became so animated with Mr Stelling, who, she felt sure, admired her cleverness, that Tom was rather amazed and alarmed at her audacity. But she was suddenly subdued by Mr Stelling’s alluding to a little girl of whom he had heard that she once ran away to the gypsies.
“What a very odd little girl that must be!” said Mrs Stelling, meaning to be playful; but a playfulness that turned on her supposed oddity was not at all to Maggie’s taste. She feared that Mr Stelling, after all, did not think much of her, and went to bed in rather low spirits. Mrs Stelling, she felt, looked at her as if she thought her hair was very ugly because it hung down straight behind.