Come, now, she wants me to be clever to you, and I'd like to do it; but if you get peppery, how can I ?" Thorny spoke in a hearty, blunt way, which suited Ben much better than the other, and he responded pleasantly,-- "If you won't be grand I won't be peppery.

Nobody is going to boss me but Miss Celia; so I'll learn hymns if she wants me to." "'In the soft season of thy youth' is a good one to begin with.

I learned it when I was six.

Nice thing; better have it." And Thorny offered the book like a patriarch addressing an infant.
Ben surveyed the yellow page with small favor, for the long s in the old-fashioned printing bewildered him; and when he came to the last two lines, he could not resist reading them wrong,-- "The earth affords no lovelier fight Than a religious youth." "I don't believe I could ever get that into my head straight.

Haven't you got a plain one any where round ?" he asked, turning over the leaves with some anxiety.
"Look at the end, and see if there isn't a piece of poetry pasted in.
You learn that, and see how funny Celia will look when you say it to her.