'Is your book so very interesting?' I asked, for her eyes fell often upon it while we conversed as if it were enticing her back to its pages.
'Yes, dear,' she answered, 'it is most interesting, for it deals with the great truths of life. You will have to learn to read it for yourself, Margery, and you will like it, too.'
'But it is written in Greek,' said I with a sigh, 'and that would take such a lot of learning.'
'I would help you,' said Lady Jane kindly, 'and you would soon learn.'
But I shook my head.
'Why should I be at so much trouble,' said I, 'when you can tell me all about it—what it says, you know?'
'What we acquire without trouble does not do us much good,' was the gentle answer. 'However, you must know Plato was the founder of a great school of Greek philosophy. He was a disciple of Socrates. You have heard of him?'
'A little,' said I. 'Master Montgomery, our good curate, told me he was a man who taught truths which the people were not educated enough to receive; therefore they killed him.'
'Yes; they killed him, much as others killed Christ our Lord, because they could not receive His teaching. Killing the body is the extreme penalty of the law,' and Lady Jane shuddered. ''Tis a cruel thing,' she said, 'for men to crush out and destroy the life they cannot give, and 'tis a savage idea to murder the body for what they imagine is a crime of the mind.'
I thought of her words long afterwards, when her own fate gave to them a mournful significance. At the time I could not bear to see sadness in her face, and therefore, to change the subject, asked—