“Yes, but Mr. Green did not mind. He’s the committeeman. He knew how
young I was,” Madeline said, eagerly, her great brown eyes growing
large with the look of fear which came so suddenly into them.
Guy noticed the eyes then, and thought them very bright and handsome
for brown, but not so bright or handsome as a certain pair of soft blue
orbs he knew, and feeling a thrill of satisfaction that sweet Lucy
Atherstone was not obliged to sit there in that doctor’s office to be
questioned by him or any other man, he said: “Of course, if your
employers are satisfied it is nothing to me, only I had associated
teaching with women much older than yourself. What is logic, Miss
Clyde?”
The abruptness with which he put the question startled Madeline to such
a degree that she could not positively tell whether she had ever heard
that word before, much less could she recall its meaning, and so she
answered frankly, “I don’t know.”
A girl who did not know what logic was did not know much, in Guy’s
estimation, but it would not do to stop here, and so he asked her next
how many cases there were in Latin!
Maddy felt the hot blood tingling to her very fingertips, the
examination had taken a course so widely different from her ideas of
what it would probably be. She had never looked inside a Latin grammar,
and again her truthful “I don’t know, sir,” fell on Guy’s ear, but this
time there was a half despairing tone in the young voice usually so
hopeful.
“Perhaps, then, you can conjugate the verb _Amo,_” Guy said, his manner
indicating the doubt he was beginning to feel as to her qualifications.
Maddy knew well what “conjugate” meant, but that verb _Amo_, what could
it mean? and had she ever heard it before? Mr. Remington was waiting
for her; she must say something, and with a gasp she began: “I amo,
thou amoest, he amoes. Plural: We amo, ye or you amo, they amo.”
Guy looked at her aghast for a single moment, and then a comical smile
broke all over his face, telling poor Maddy plainer than words could
have done, that she had made a most ridiculous mistake.
“Oh, sir,” she cried, her eyes wearing the look of the frightened hare,
“it is not right. I don’t know what it means. Tell me, teach me. What
is it to amo?”
To most men it would not have seemed a very disagreeable task, teaching
young Madeline Clyde “to amo,” as she termed it, and some such idea
flitted across Guy’s mind, as he thought how pretty and bright was the
eager face upturned to his, the pure white forehead, suffused with a
faint flush, the cheeks a crimson hue, and the pale lips parted
slightly as Maddy appealed to him for the definition of “amo.”
“It is a Latin verb, and means ‘to love’” Guy said, with an emphasis on
the last word, which would have made Maddy blush had she been less
anxious and frightened.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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