Mr. Achilles by Jennette Barbour Perry Lee
page 24 of 149 (16%)
page 24 of 149 (16%)
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He was no doubt a worthy man. But Betty was only a child, and too easily
enamoured of people she liked. It was strange how deep an impression the man's words had made on her. Athens and Greece filled her waking moments. Statues and temples--photographs and books of travel loaded the school-room shelves. The house reeked with Greek learning. Poor Miss Stone found herself drifting into archaeology; and an exhaustive study of Greek literature, Greek life, Greek art filled her days. The theory of Betty Harris's education had been elaborately worked out by specialists from earliest babyhood. Certain studies, rigidly prescribed, were to be followed whether she liked them or not--but outside these lines, subjects were to be taken up when she showed an interest in them. There could be no question that the time for the study of Greek history and Greek civilisation had come. Miss Stone laboured early and late. Instruction from the university down the lake was pressed into service.... But out of it all the child seemed, by some kind of precious alchemy, to extract only the best, the vital heart of it. The instructor in Greek marvelled a little. "She is only a child," he reported to the head of the department, "and the family are American of the newest type--you know, the Philip Harrises?" The professor nodded. "I know--hide and hoof a generation back." The instructor assented. "But the child is uncanny. She knows more about Greek than--" "Than _I_ do, I suppose." The professor smiled indulgently. "She wouldn't have to know much for that." "It isn't so much what she _knows_. She has a kind of _feeling_ for |
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