doleful tears.

CHAPTER X

THE OGRE REAPPEARS

"Hope you haven't forgotten that you've bound yourself in an engagement
with me for the theatre to-morrow, Nannie, old dear," called Charlotte
from her customary location during leisure hours--namely the piano
bench. "I've reserved seats for 'The Countess Betsey'--nice, light,
loads of good Viennese tunes--nothing lofty about it. Miss Drinkwater
had a cute little plan for us--wanted us to go to hear--or see--I don't
know just what the right word is--some production of Euripides in the
original. I said 'No'--very politely. Too politely perhaps--I had to
repeat it three separate and distinct times. I explained to her that
while I just adored Euripides, and loved nothing better than Greek as
she is spoke, my constitution craved something a bit gayer than
'Medea'--in the original. I hinted modestly that I'd been overworking
a bit lately--and that my mighty brain needed something that it didn't
have to chew eighty-five times before swallowing. Aren't you going to
thank me?"

"Oh, I do--thanks _horribly_," laughed Nancy. "Can't you see us
sitting through a merry little Greek play, trying to weep in the right
places, and not to laugh when everyone but the villainess had been
stabbed or poisoned or fed to the lions?"

"Gee--but couldn't we be lofty when we got back?" said Charlotte. "I'd
say, 'How sublime were those lines in Act II, Scene 4, where, in a
voice thrilling with sublime hate, the frenzied woman shrieks "Logos
Nike anthropos Socrates!"' And you would glow with fervor, and say
'_Zoue mou sas agapo_.' I tell you what, when it comes to dead
languages----"

"It's too late, I hope, for you to get enthusiastic about the idea
now," interrupted Nancy, firmly. "It wouldn't be a bit unlike you to
get so carried away with it, that you'd suddenly change your mind about
not going--and I'll tell you right now, that if you do I am
emphatically _not_ with you. I don't like to improve my mind when I'm
on a holiday--and Saturdays come only once a week."

"You should thirst for every opportunity to improve your
understanding," reproved Charlotte, who could chatter away like a
magpie, while her nimble fingers never lost a note, or stumbled in the
rhythm of the lively dance tune she was playing.

"Don't forget _our_ little party, Alma," said Mildred Lloyd.
"Mademoiselle is going to chaperone us--I asked her yesterday. We're
going in on the eleven-fifty-four, an