p against enthusiasm she could not share. Young ladies,
middle-aged ladies, even old ladies, all listening spellbound--at least
if not absolutely spellbound, spellbound compared to Henrietta--to an
elderly gentleman discoursing on Aristotle. For most of them Aristotle,
and the satisfaction of using their minds were sufficient, but a little
knot of middle-aged women in the front, with hair inclined to be short,
and eyes bursting with intelligence, used learning as a symbol of
emancipation. Lectures were their vote. Now they would be in prison.

Henrietta listened for five minutes, then suddenly her thoughts darted
to her portmanteau: she had lost the key at Dieppe. They went on to the
incivility at the Custom-house, the incivility of the waiter at Bale,
the incivility of the gardener at her old home, the geranium bed in the
garden--would her stepmother attend to it?--her father, was his eyesight
really failing? She came back with a jump to find that the lecture had
moved on several pages. She listened with fair success for another five
minutes, then her mind wandered to her landlady at the lodgings; was she
perfectly honest, did her expression inspire confidence? There was that
pearl brooch Louie had given her; it was Louie's birthday to-morrow, she
must write, and hear also how Tom was getting on in this his second term
at school, she must send him a hamper. She had settled the contents of
the hamper when she found that someone was speaking to her. The lecturer
was asking whether she felt she would care to write a paper. He hoped as
many ladies as possible would make an attempt at the papers; it would be
a great pleasure and interest to him to look through them, etc.

On the way back she found Miss Gurney entranced with everything; she
seemed to have picked up a great deal more than Henrietta. They went at
once to a library and a bookshop to get what they had been advised to
read, and Miss Gurney bought reams of paper. She was hard at work the
whole evening. Henrietta had one of the books open before her, but she
found the same difficulty in concentrating herself that she had done at
the lecture. Miss Gurney was rapidly filling an exercise book with an
abstract, and was keeping up a conversation as well.

"Ah _that_ was the piece I couldn't quite understand this morning. Yes I
see, now it is quite clear. Look, Miss Symons. Oh, I shall learn Greek,
I certainly shall, as he said, it will make it twenty times more
interes