I wouldn't believe the stories I heard this afternoon.

I wanted to hear you speak in your own defense and you refuse to do it.

Don't you know what people are saying?
They say you are trying to keep Emily because--Oh, I'm ashamed to ask it, but you make me: HAS the child got valuable property of her own ?" Captain Cy had been, throughout this scene, standing quietly by the table.

Now he took a step forward.
"Miss Dawes," he said sharply, "sit down." "But I--" "Sit down, please." The schoolmistress didn't mean to obey the order, but for some reason she did.

The captain went on speaking.
"It's pretty plain," he said, "that what you heard at the boardin' house--for I suppose that's where you did hear it--was what you might call a Phinneyized story of the doin's at the meetin'.