"And he wouldn't if he had been a gentleman.
'Twas not the language to use to a woman of any niceness.

You, so well read and cultivated--how could he expect ye to know what tom-boy field-folk are in the habit of doing?
If so be you had just come from trimming swedes or mangolds--joking with the rough work-folk and all that--I could have stood it.

But hasn't it cost me near a hundred a year to lift you out of all that, so as to show an example to the neighborhood of what a woman can be?
Grace, shall I tell you the secret of it?
'Twas because I was in your company.

If a black-coated squire or pa'son had been walking with you instead of me he wouldn't have spoken so." "No, no, father; there's nothing in you rough or ill-mannered!" "I tell you it is that! I've noticed, and I've noticed it many times, that a woman takes her color from the man she's walking with.

The woman who looks an unquestionable lady when she's with a polished-up fellow, looks a mere tawdry imitation article when she's hobbing and nobbing with a homely blade.