Maw and I heerd you exhort 'em! Maw allowed you woz talkin' a furrin' tongue all along, but I--sakes alive!--I hed to hump myself to keep from bustin' into a yell when yer jist drawed them Webster-unabridged sentences on 'em." She stopped and rocked backwards and forwards with a laugh that, subdued by the proximity of the roof and the fear of being overheard, was by no means unmusical.

"I'll tell ye whot got me, though! That part commencing, 'Suckamstances over which I've no controul.'" "Oh, come! I didn't say that," interrupted Hale, laughing.
"'Don't make it convenient for me to exercise the privilege of kickin' yer out to that extent,'" she continued; "'but if I cannot dispense with your room, the least I can say is that it's a d--d sight better than your company--'or suthin' like that! And then the way you minded your stops, and let your voice rise and fall just ez easy ez if you wos a First Reader in large type.

Why, the Kernel wasn't nowhere.

HIS cussin' didn't come within a mile o' yourn.

That Stanner jist turned yaller." "I'm afraid you are laughing at me," said Hale, not knowing whether to be pleased or vexed at the girl's amusement.
"I reckon I'm the only one that dare do it, then," said the girl simply.
"The Kernel sez the way you turned round after he'd done his cussin', and said yer believed you'd stay and take the responsibility of the whole thing--and did, in that kam, soft, did-anybody-speak-to-me style--was the neatest thing he'd seen yet.