“I am certainly impressed,” the Duke said. “At the same time it does seem extraordinary that you should be so erudite and a woman.”
“I think that is rather unkind, Your Grace. I can only inform you that I read Voltaire in the original French when I was barely out of the cradle.”
She paused for a moment before she went on,
“Goethe was read to me instead of the Fairy stories most children listen to and a collection of Dante’s works was my parents’ present to me on my eighth birthday.”
The Duke looked as if he could not believe what he was hearing.
“You cannot expect me to believe that!” “But it’s true and then I was taught Virgil’s Aeneid instead of the nursery rhymes that most children enjoy.”
The Duke laughed.
“I find all this hard to believe, but equally I will be honest and say I
