thalasses"; that was better. "Don't you think so, Mark?"

"Clever Minx. Much better."

"Mark--if God knew how happy I am writing poetry he'd make the earth open
and swallow me up."

Mark only said, "You mustn't say that to Mamma. Play 'Violetta.'"

Of all hateful and disgusting tunes the most disgusting and the most
hateful was "Violetta," which Mr. Sippett's sister taught her. But if
Mark would promise to make Mamma let her learn Greek she would play it to
him twenty times running.

When Mark went to Chelmsted that autumn he left her his brown _Greek
Accidence_ and Smith's _Classical Dictionary_, besides Macaulay's _Lays
of Ancient Rome_. She taught herself Greek in the hour after breakfast
before Miss Sippett came to give her her music lesson. She was always
careful to leave the Accidence open where Miss Sippett could see it and
realise that she was not a stupid little girl.

But whether Miss Sippett saw the Accidence or not she always behaved as
if it wasn't there.


III.

When Mamma saw the Accidence open on the drawing-room table she shut it
and told you to put it in its proper place. If you talked about it her
mouth buttoned up tight, and her eyes blinked, and she began tapping with