"You are afraid to tell me the truth too," she said, and when she went away he was very sorry for her, but not so sorry as she was for herself.

"When I am grown up," she announced dolefully, to Tommy, "I shall be a bad woman, just like mamma." "Not if you try to be good," he said.
"Yes, I shall.

There is something in my blood that will make me bad, and I so wanted to be good.

Oh! oh! oh!" She told him of the things she had heard people say, but though they perplexed him almost as much as her, he was not so hopeless of learning their meaning, for here was just the kind of difficulty he liked to overcome.

"I'll get it out o' Blinder," he said, with confidence in his ingenuity, "and then I'll tell you what he says." But however much he might strive to do so, Tommy could never repeat anything without giving it frills and other adornment of his own making, and Grizel knew this.
"I must hear what he says myself," she insisted.
"But he winna speak plain afore you." "Yes, he will, if he does not know I am there." The plot succeeded, though only partially, for so quick was the blind man's sense of hearing that in the middle of the conversation he said, sharply, "Somebody's ahint the dyke!" and he caught Grizel by the shoulder.