'
'Come,' murmured Elfride poutingly, and insinuating herself
between them, 'tell me all about it. Come, construe, construe!'
Stephen looked steadfastly into her face, and said slowly, and in
a voice full of a far-off meaning that seemed quaintly premature
in one so young:
'Quae finis WHAT WILL BE THE END, aut OR, quod stipendium WHAT
FINE, manet me AWAITS ME? Effare SPEAK OUT; luam I WILL PAY, cum
fide WITH FAITH, jussas poenas THE PENALTY REQUIRED.'
The vicar, who had listened with a critical compression of the
lips to this school-boy recitation, and by reason of his imperfect
hearing had missed the marked realism of Stephen's tone in the
English words, now said hesitatingly: 'By the bye, Mr. Smith (I
know you'll excuse my curiosity), though your translation was
unexceptionably correct and close, you have a way of pronouncing
your Latin which to me seems most peculiar. Not that the
pronunciation of a dead language is of much importance; yet your
accents and quantities have a grotesque sound to my ears. I
thought first that you had acquired your way of breathing the
vowels from some of the northern colleges; but it cannot be so
with the quantities. What I was going to ask was, if your
instructor in the classics could possibly have been an Oxford or
Cambridge man?'
'Yes; he was an Oxford man--Fellow of St. Cyprian's.'
'Really?'
'Oh yes; there's no doubt about it.
'The oddest thing ever I heard of!' said Mr.
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