Althea by Madeleine E. Robins

thoughts on some subject.”
    “I suppose we could speak of literature, but that would only
go on long enough to disclose that we both love Cowper, detest Pope, never read
novels, and there you are! We would dive into abysmal silence again.” Tracy’s
tone was mocking, but if he was prepared to be in an evil temper, then Althea
was prepared to quarrel him out of it.
    “You speak very freely of my preferences. The only statement
you have made that I can fully agree with is that our silence is abysmal. As
for your digest of a lady’s literary taste, I loathe Cowper, think Pope almost
as bad, read novels frequently, and have a scandalous preference for Sterne and
Fielding over Mrs. Radcliffe and her ilk. Make what you will of that.”
    “This is mere defiance!” Tracy smiled. “You cannot be so
different from the others of your sex as to truly hold those opinions. It would
spoil a theory that I formulated with a friend one night over a bottle —
several bottles — of his port: that all women below the age of thirty were born
with the same taste in all the arts. You only deny it to annoy me.”
    “Not to annoy but to uphold the honor of my sex — and my own
honor as well. But what of the women over thirty? How do you account for them?
In any case, at least I read novels and admit my crime, whereas most people
take Clarissa Harlow or The Castle of Otranto off to read in a
closet somewhere, and then virtuously decry novels — wishing all the while to
be Emily St. Aubert or the wicked Montoni. Novels are a great deal of fun,”
Althea said solemnly. “At least if your taste runs to the scandalous — as Mary
says mine does. Lord, but I scandalized her enough with laughing over the name
of her hairstyle — Sappho. I explained who that worthy lady was, and Mary
begged me never again to tell anyone that I even read Greek, let alone that I
had read such a poet.” Althea could feel Tracy’s eyes upon her in a look of
mild astonishment.
    “Have I shocked you now? I had thought you were above being
shocked by such a one as I. I suppose I might as well have admitted out and out
to being a bluestocking. It is all the fault of living so deep in the country,
you see. I had nothing to do but study and keep my father’s house — I even
persuaded the dominie to teach me Greek and Latin when I was quite small. Maria
would be furious if she knew that I had exposed my guilty secret to you.”
    Tracy was making a definite attempt to control his
amusement. “Why would that infuriate your sister so?” he asked gravely.
    “After all the care she had lavished upon me? Maria is not
in the least bookish, and has the greatest horror that I will be thought so,
since I do read a book on occasion.” Calendar unmistakably grinned. Althea was
pleased enough by the results of her fatal confession to continue amusing him
with the details of her transformation. “Mary’s greatest fear is that I should
flaunt my — my dreadful deficiency at large,” she said airily.
    “What dreadful deficiency?”
    “A deficiency of maidenly ignorance. She has said that when
I am married, I may be as learned as I please, although she could see no point
to it. But knowledge is unconscionable in a single lady, and so until such time
as some hapless man shall take responsibility for my foibles, I am to appear as
sweet and senseless as Mary herself.” Althea laughed ruefully. “And all to
catch some poor witless fellow so I may continue to study! All those years at
Hook Well there was no need for the quadrille and the waltz and knowing how to
discourage an overly amorous gentleman — if I should ever run into such! — for
Papa never let me farther than the town of Hooking. I suppose there was no
practical use for Greek or German either, but I have to read: knitting and
keeping stock of the preserves do not fill up an ordinary day, unless one is a
very slow knitter or stock-keeper.”
    “And so your sister undertook to educate you in all these
sadly