this passage,
part of a passive verb, which Tom had construed correctly, "it was
objected," and she had thought this very creditable to him, whereas he
now evidently took it for opposite; however, on Richard's reading the
line, he corrected himself and called it a participle, but did not
commit himself further, till asked for its derivation.

"From oppositor."

"Hallo!" cried Harry, who hitherto had been abstracted in his book, but
now turned, raised himself on his elbow, and, at the blunder, shook his
thick yellow locks, and showed his teeth like a young lion.

"No, now, Tom, pay attention," said Richard resignedly. "If you found
out its meaning, you must have seen its derivation."

"Oppositus," said Tom, twisting his fingers, and gazing first at Ethel,
then at Harry, in hopes of being prompted, then at the ceiling and
floor, the while he drawled out the word with a whine, "why, oppositus
from op-posor."

"A poser! ain't it?" said Harry.

"Don't, Harry, you distract him," said Richard. "Come, Tom, say at once
whether you know it or not--it is of no use to invent."

"From op-" and a mumble.

"What? I don't hear--op--"

Tom again looked for help to Harry, who made a mischievous movement of
his lips, as if prompting, and, deceived by it, he said boldly, "From
op-possum."

"That's right! let us hear him decline it!" cried Harry, in an ecstasy.
"Oppossum, opottis, opposse, or oh-pottery!"

"Harry," said Richard, in a gentle reasonable voice, "I wish you would
be so kind as not to stay, if you cannot help distracting him."

And Harry, who really had a tolerable share of forbearance and
consideration, actually obeyed, contenting himself with tossing his book
into the air and catching it again, while he paused at the door to give
his last unsolicited assistance. "Decline oppossum you say. I'll tell
you how: O-possum re-poses up a gum tree. O-pot-you-I will, says the
O-posse of Yankees, come out to ketch him. Opossum poses them and
declines in O-pot-esse by any manner of means of o-potting-di-do-dum,
was quite oppositum-oppotitu, in fact, quite contrairy."

Richard, with the gravity of a victim, heard this sally of schoolboy
wit, which threw Ethel back on the sofa in fits of laughing, and
declaring that the Opossum declined, not that he was declined; but, in
the midst of the disturbance thus created, Tom stepped up to her, and
whispered, "Do tell me, Ethel!"

"Indeed I shan't," said she. "Why don't you say fa