mitted. "There's _something_ in Latin makes you proud.
Only yesterday I was gassing to three girls about knowing _amo, amas,
amat_; and, next thing, you'll say, 'I'd like you to know Ovid,' and
I'll say,' Mr. Ovid, I'm pleased to have met you'--like what happens
in the States when you shake hands with a professor. All the same, I
don't see what there is in _amo, amas, amat_ to make the gas."

"Wait till you come to _cras amet qui nunquam amavit_."

"Is that what you were translating?"

"Yes."

"Then translate it for me, please."

"You shall construe for yourself. Cras means 'to-morrow.' _Amet_--"

"That's the present subjunctive. Let me see--'he may love.'"

"Try again."

"Or 'let him love.'"

"Right. 'To-morrow let him love.' _Qui?_"

"'Who.'"

"_Nunquam?_"

"'Never'--I know that too."

"_Amavit?_"

"Perfect, active, third person singular--'he has loved.'"

"Qui being the subject--"

"'Who--never--has loved.'"

"Right as ninepence again. 'To-morrow let him love who has never
loved.'"

"But," objected Corona, "it seems so easy!--and here you have been
for quite half an hour muttering and shaking your head over it, and
taking you can't think what a lot of nasty snuff."

"Have I?" Brother Copas sought for his watch. "Heavens, child!
The hour has struck these ten minutes ago. Why didn't you remind
me?"

"Because I thought 'twouldn't be manners. But, of course, if I'd
known you were wasting your time, and over anything so easy--"

"Not quite so easy as you suppose, miss. To begin with, the
original is in verse; a late Latin poem in a queer metre, and by whom
written nobody knows. But you are quite right about my wasting my
time. . . . What troubles me is that I have been wasting yours, when
you ought to have been out at play in the sun."

"Please don't mention that," said Corona politely. "It has been fun
enough watching you frowning and tapping your fingers, and writing
something down and scratching it out the next moment. What is it all
about, Uncle Copas?"

"It--er--is called the _Pervigilium Veneris_; that's to say
_The Vigil of Venus_. But I suppose that conveys nothing to you?"

He thrust his spectacles high on his forehead and smiled at her
vaguely across the table.

"Of course it doesn't. I don't know what a Vigil means; or Venus--
whether it's a person or a place; or why the Latin is late, as you
call it. Late for what?"

Brother Copas laughed dryly.

"Late fo