The sums paid from time to time into my hands, received from the sales of produce, were far greater than I could possibly spend in gratifying any taste of my own; and, as I presently found, the idea that the surplus might indulge those of the ladies never entered their minds.
Before we had been settled in our home for three days Eveena had made two requests which I was well pleased to grant.

First, she entreated that I would teach her one at least of the languages with which I was familiar--a task of whose extreme difficulty she had little idea.
Compared with her native tongue, the complication and irregularities of the simplest language spoken on Earth are far more arbitrary and provoking than seems the most difficult of ancient or Oriental tongues to a Frenchman or Italian.

In order to fulfil my promise that she should assist me in recording my observations and writing out my notes, I chose Latin.

Unhappily for her, I found myself as impatient and unsuccessful as I was inexperienced in teaching; and nothing but her exquisite gentleness and forbearance could have made the lessons otherwise than painful to us both.

Well for me that the "right to govern wrong" was to her a simple truth--an inalienable marital privilege, to be met with that unqualified submission which must have shamed the worst temper into self-control.