Amid laughter and exclamations Hamilton confessed himself the man who had guessed Latin to be the cause of Miss Current’s remaining an old maid; Rose, crying:
“You really are too clever, Aunt Bel!”
A divergence to other themes ensued, and then Miss Jenny Graine said: “Isn’t Juley learning Latin? I should like to join her while I’m here.”
“And so should I,” responded Rose. “My friend Evan is teaching her during the intervals of his arduous diplomatic labours. Will you take us into your class, Evan?”
“Don’t be silly, girls,” interposed Aunt Bel. “Do you want to graduate for my state with your eyes open?”
Evan objected his poor qualifications as a tutor, and Aunt Bel remarked, that if Juley learnt Latin at all, she should have regular instruction.
“I am quite satisfied,” said Juley, quietly.
“Of course you are,” Rose snubbed her cousin. “So would anybody be. But Mama really was talking of a tutor for Juley, if she could find one. There’s a school at Bodley; but that’s too far for one of the men to come over.”
A school at Bodley! thought Evan, and his probationary years at the Cudford Establishment rose before him; and therewith, for the first time since his residence at Beckley, the figure of John Raikes.
“There’s a friend of mine,” he said, aloud, “I think if Lady Jocelyn does wish Miss Bonner to learn Latin thoroughly, he would do very well for the groundwork and would be glad of the employment. He is very poor.”