“Ah, there, now, Miss Maggie!” said Tom, drawing the book away, and wagging his head at her, “You see you’re not so clever as you thought you were.” “Oh,” said Maggie, pouting, “I dare say I could make it out, if I’d learned what goes before, as you have.” “But that’s what you just couldn’t, Miss Wisdom,” said Tom. “For it’s all the harder when you know what goes before; for then you’ve got to say what definition 3 is, and what axiom V. is. But get along with you now; I must go on with this. Here’s the Latin Grammar. See what you can make of that.” Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing after her mathematical mortification; for she delighted in new words, and quickly found that there was an English Key at the end, which would make her very wise about Latin, at slight expense. She presently made up her mind to skip the rules in the Syntax, the examples became so absorbing. These mysterious sentences, snatched from an unknown context,—like strange horns of beasts, and leaves of unknown plants, brought from some far-off region,—gave boundless scope to her imagination, and were all the more fascinating because they were in a peculiar tongue of their own, which she could learn to interpret. It was really very interesting, the Latin Grammar that Tom had said no girls could learn; and she was proud because she found it interesting. The most fragmentary examples were her favourites. _Mors omnibus est communis_ would have been jejune, only she liked to know the Latin; but the fortunate gentleman whom every one congratulated because he had a son “endowed with _such_ a disposition” afforded her a great deal of pleasant conjecture, and she was quite lost in the “thick grove penetrable by no star,” when Tom called out,— “Now, then, Magsie, give us the Grammar!” “Oh, Tom, it’s such a pretty book!” she said, as she jumped out of the large arm-chair to give it him; “it’s much prettier than the Dictionary. I could learn Latin very soon. I don’t think it’s at all hard.” “Oh, I know what you’ve been doing,” said Tom; “you’ve been reading the English at the end. Any donkey can do that.” Tom seized the book and opened it with a determined and business-like air, as much as to say that he had a lesson to learn which no donkeys would find themselves equal to. Maggie, rather piqued, turned to the bookcases to amuse herself with puzzling out the titles. Presently Tom called to her: “Here, Magsie, come and hear if I can say this. Stand at that end of the table, where Mr Stelling sits when he hears me.” Maggie obeyed, and took the open book. “Where do you begin, Tom?” “Oh, I begin at _’Appellativa arborum,’_ because I say all over again what I’ve been learning this week.” Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines; and Maggie was beginning to forget her office of prompter in speculating as to what _mas_ could mean, which came twice over, when he stuck fast at _Sunt etiam volucrum_.