r and Patty, why the English translation
should not be every bit as pure as the Greek. Our language has extended
itself considerably of late, and close application and study may recall
to my mind the most fitting words. But there is one thing certain, my
dear girls---- Ah! is that you, nurse? Miss Pauline is better. I was
talking about Plato, nurse. The last translation I have been making from
his immortal work does not please me; but toil--ceaseless toil--the
midnight oil, _et cetera_, may evoke the spirit of the true Muse, and I
may be able to put the matter before the great English thinking public in
a way worthy of the immortal master."

Mr. Dale had now pushed his hat very far back from his forehead. He
removed it, still quite abstractedly, and retired with long, shuffling
strides to his beloved study.

"No food until I ring for it," he said when he reached the door, and then
he vanished.

"Blessed man!" said Betty, who was standing in the far distance. "He
might be a dook himself for all his airs. It was lovely the way he
clothed his thoughts that time. What they be themselves I don't know, but
his language was most enthralling. John, get out of my way. What are you
standing behind me like that for? Get along and weed the garden--do."

"You'll give me a cup of tea, and tell me more about that dream of
yours," was John's answer.

Whereupon Betty took John by the hand, whisked into her kitchen, slammed
the door after her, and planted him down on a wooden seat, and then
proceeded to make tea.

But while John and Betty were happily engaged in pleasant converse with
each other, Mr. Dale's condition was by no means so favorable. At first
when he entered his study he saw nothing unusual. His mind was far too
loftily poised to notice such sublunary matters as white curtains and
druggets not in tatters; but when he seated himself at his desk, and
stretched out his hand mechanically to find his battered old edition of
Plato, it was not in its accustomed place. He looked around him, raised
his eyes, put his hand to his forehead, and, still mechanically, but with
a dawning of fright on his face, glanced round the room. What did he see?
He started, stumbled to his feet, turned deathly white, and rushed to the
opposite bookcase. There was his Plato--his idol--actually placed in the
bookshelf upside-down. It was a monstrous crime--a crime that he felt he
could never forgive--that no one could expect him to forgive. He walk