“Harriet has been with me a long time,” she said to herself at last. “But neither because of her superior Latin instruction, nor for the sake of our old friendship, can I any longer allow my girls in The Hermitage to lack a home atmosphere. Perhaps, after all, Athens needs Harriet. I may be doing the Ancient World a favor, who knows?” And the little, gray-haired lady smiled to herself in the twilight. CHAPTER IX THE THANKSGIVING ORATION OF LUCILE DU BOSE “Dorothy, do you think it’s fair?” The black eyes of Lucile Du Bose, ready at any moment to brim over with discouraged tears, implored her room-mate, who lay upon the couch, deep in a magazine. “Dorothy, do you?” Dorothy frowned. Apparently she had no thoughts on the subject, and did not wish to be disturbed. “Do I what, Lucile? What’s the matter, anyway?” Her tone was petulant and not conducive to conversation; but poor Lucile was desperate. “Do you think it’s fair for me to have to write an oration on the Pilgrim Fathers? I don’t know anything about them, Dorothy. Besides, I’m most all French; and I don’t know how to start an oration, anyway!” “Why, of course, it’s fair enough. The others all have to. Why not you? No one’s to blame because you’re French.” “But the rest don’t all have to,” persisted the injured Lucile, while Dorothy began again to read. “The Blackmore twins were allowed to take Ethan Allen, because he’s their ancestor; and Miss Wallace told Virginia she could write on the Pioneers. Who are the Pioneers, Dorothy?” “Search me!” Dorothy was in a forbidding temper. Of late even her devotion to Miss Wallace had not made her “angelic” to her room-mate. Lucile chewed her pen-stock savagely. Something must be done. Study hour was nearly over, and Dorothy would be on her way to tennis or the “Forget-me-not.” She would try once more. “Dorothy?” “Well!” “Dorothy, if you’ll tell me how an oration begins, I’ll do your French sentences every day for two weeks.” Dorothy stopped reading. This was worth considering, since her rank in French had been B for some time. Of late Dorothy’s resolutions made in the fall had been considerably bent if not broken. Still it would not do to accept with too much alacrity. She closed the magazine. “I can’t see, Lucile, how you can have been studying orations all the fall with Miss Wallace, and not know what one is like. Don’t you listen in class?” “Of course I do; but they’re so dry I forgot them. I know Napoleon’s ‘Address to his Troops,’ but I can’t understand Washington and Webster. If I could just begin this I might go on. It’s got to sound patriotic, you know, and thrilling, like ‘Soldiers! you have precipitated yourselves like a torrent from the Apennines!’”