as unbraided
her locks as a bride to her lord.
For she walks--She our Lady, our Mistress
of Wedlock,--the woodlands atween,
And the bride-bed she weaves them, with
myrtle enlacing, with curtains of green.
Look, list ye the law of Dione, aloft and
enthroned in the blue:--
Now learn ye to love who loved never--now
ye who have loved, love anew!'

"H'm, h'm--tolerable only! '_Aloft and established in blue_'--is that
better?"

"Uncle Copas, whatever are you doing?"

Corona looked up from her page of irregular verbs, and across to her
preceptor as he sat muttering and scribbling.

"The idlest thing in the world, child. Translating."

"But you told me that next week, if I learned these verbs, you would
let me begin to translate."

"To be sure I did. You must go on translating and translating until,
like me, you ought to know better. Then you throw it all away."

"I suppose I shall understand, one of these fine days," sighed
Corona. "But, uncle, you won't mind my asking a question? I really
do want to find out about these things. . . . And I really do want to
learn Latin, ever since you said it was the only way to find out all
that St. Hospital means."

"Did I say that? I ought, of course, to have said that Latin was
worth learning for its own sake."

"I guess," said Corona sagely, "you thought you'd take the likeliest
way with me."

"O woman! woman! . . . But what was your question?"

"Sometimes I wake early and lie in bed thinking. I was thinking,
only yesterday morning, if people are able to put into English all
that was ever written in Latin, why don't they do it and save other
people the trouble?"

"Now I suppose," said Brother Copas, "that in the United States of
America--land of labour-saving appliances--that is just how it would
strike everyone?"

He knew that this would nettle her. But, looking up hotly, she
caught his smile and laughed.

"Well, but why?" she demanded.

"Because the more it was the same thing the more it would be
different. There's only one way with Latin and Greek. You must let
'em penetrate: soak 'em into yourself, get 'em into your nature
slowly, through the pores of the skin."

"It sounds like sitting in a bath."

"That's just it. It's a baptism first and a bath afterwards; but the
more it's a bath, the more you remember it's a baptism."

"I guess you have that right, though I don't follow,"
Corona ad