“They used to meet together in little companies, and discuss the deepest and most important topics of the day—”
“I expect they gossiped horribly!”
“And they watched the dramas—”
“I call that amusement! I wouldn’t mind doing that myself.”
“But the Greek dramas were not light and vapid like modern plays. They dealt with serious subjects, and the audience often used to commit the words to memory as a mental exercise.”
Dreda yawned.
“Ah, well,” she conceded indulgently, “it’s a long while ago! One mustn’t be hard on them, poor dears, for they knew no better. I don’t approve of girls bothering their heads about ancient Greeks. Boys have to, for examinations, but if we want to grow up nice, domesticated women it’s better to learn modern things, and leave those old fusties alone. They do one no good.”
The girls stared at her in stunned surprise. Agnes, the second Webster, dropped her chin to an abnormal length; the youngest, Susan, bit nervously at her lips; Mary cleared her throat and showed signs of returning to the attack, but Dreda was already tired of the subject, and made a diversion by leaping from her seat and approaching the table where piles of blue-covered exercise books were neatly arranged at intervals of about a yard apart.
“Let me look at your books, and see what you are doing! I didn’t bring any books till I saw what you used. I expect they will be the same. All school books are. I’ve got the ones Rowena used.” She broke off, staring with dismay at the underlined questions which met her eye in one of Agnes’s neatly written books:
“Characterise the work of Praxiteles, comparing it with that of Phidias.”