“You needn’t fear open violence from him. If he works against you, it will be in an underhand way.”
“At any rate, the die is cast; I have agreed to take the school, and I shall do what I can to succeed.
“‘In battle I’ll fall, or in death be laid low,
With my face to the field, and my feet to the foe.’”
Barclay laughed.
“If you undertake it in that spirit,” he said, “I think you will succeed. At any rate you have my best wishes.”
CHAPTER XI
TWO POETS.
Miss Melinda Athanasia Jones devoted herself during the day to the composition of a poem to be read to the guests whom she expected in the evening. She wanted to produce a good impression upon them. Her vocation, so she thought, was that of an authoress. She had sent several poems to the Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Magazine at various times, but with singular unanimity both periodicals had “respectfully declined” them all. Melinda understood the reason well enough.
“It is because I am a Western literati,” she exclaimed to her brother, with a lofty contempt for grammar. “If I were a Boston or New York literati, they would be glad to get my productions.”