Miss Steele, you have read some Cicero, I know, already." Cicero! That girl read Cicero, when I had barely begun Caesar! This was a crusher for me.

How about the brushing-up now?
"And you, Jones, have you begun Cicero yet ?" "Well, no," I said, "not yet." "Caesar, then; I think we shall both be ready to take that up again.
How far were you--or shall we begin at the beginning ?" "Better begin at the beginning," said I, anxious not to have to confess that I had not yet got through the first chapter.
But before we had gone many lines, Miss Bousfield, I could see, began to have her doubts about my syntax; and after a little conference about syntax, the question of verbs came up, unpleasantly for me; and after deciding we had a little brushing-up to do there, the conversation turned on declensions, a subject on which I had very little definite information to afford to these two females in distress.
I verily believe we should have come to exchanging views on the indefinite article itself, had not Miss Bousfield taken the bull by the horns, and said-- "I think the best thing, Jones, will be for us to assume we know nothing, to begin with, and start at the beginning.

We shall easily get over the ground then, and it will be all the better to be sure of our footing.

Let us take Exercise 1.

in the grammar." Miss Steele pouted a little, as if to indicate it was hardly worth her while, as a reader of Cicero, to waste her time over "a high tree," "a bad boy," "a beautiful table," and so on.