May 9, 1554

Days are full of lessons. Latin with George Buchanan, who is mightily irritated with Mary Beaton for her sloppy translations. Master Buchanan rarely becomes upset, so her work must have been exceedingly poor. He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and muttered in Latin, which roughly translated meant, Cicero is turning in his grave. Signore Marcellini arrived for our music lessons with his hand bandaged. Mary Livingston asked him what had happened. He mumbled something about an unfortunate encounter with a book knife. But book knives are not that sharp. They are designed only to cut the paper of new books that come with their pages still fused. I detest being the first reader of a new book for just this reason. It takes so long to endlessly be cutting through the pages to read them.