Skeat traces the word “flippant” back through “flip” and the old Northumbrian present participle ending “an” to the Icelandic “fleipa,” which means to prattle--I found this out in a dictionary and copied it down for Lalage. Miss Pettigrew was not, I think, justified in applying the word, supposing that she used it in its strict etymological sense, to Lalage’s composition. There was more in the essay than mere prattle. But Miss Pettigrew may have had reasons of her own, reasons which I can only guess, for wishing to depreciate this particular essay. It is quite possible that she was herself the person who told Lalage that it is rude for a girl to sit with her lees crossed. My mother, to whom I showed the composition when I consulted her about the probable meaning of flippant, refused to entertain this suggestion. She knows Miss Pettigrew and does not think she is the kind of person who would attach excessive importance to the position of Lalage’s legs. She thinks that the maxim referred to by Lalage--there evidently was a maxim in her mind when she wrote--must have fallen from the lips of Miss Campbell, the mathematician, Carpy, or the purple-gowned woman. If she is right, I can only suppose that Miss Pettigrew in using the word flippant meant to support the authority of her subordinates and to snub Lalage for attempting to rebel against time-honoured tradition. I walked across to the rectory after luncheon, intending to show my letter and the composition on politeness to the Canon. I found him seriously upset. He had received a letter from Lalage, and he had also enjoyed a visit from the Archdeacon. He was ill-advised in showing the letter to the Archdeacon. I should have had more sense. I suppose he thought that, dealing as it did almost entirely with religious subjects, it was likely to interest the Archdeacon. It did interest him. It interested him excessively, to an extent which occasioned a good deal of trouble. “Dear Father: I have read nearly the whole of the ‘Earthly Paradise’ since I came here. It is an awfully jolly book. [‘Little Folks’ is Miss Campbell’s idea of literature for the young; but that’s all rot of course.) Who wrote the Litany? If you do not know please ask the Archdeacon when you see him. I’ve come to the conclusion that some of it is very well written.” “I did ask the Archdeacon,” said the Canon, looking up from the letter, “and he said he’d hunt up the point when he went home.” “Lalage,” I said, “has quite a remarkable feeling for style. See the way she writes about the ‘Earthly Paradise.’ It must be the way you brought her up on quotations from Horace. Miss Campbell hardly appreciates her, I’m afraid. But of course you can’t expect a mathematician to rise much above ‘Little Folks’ in the way of literature. I suppose the Archdeacon was greatly pleased with that conundrum about the Litany.” “It was what followed,” said the Canon, “which excited him.” He began to read again: