"That is the queerest Virginianism I've heard yet--'you all.'" "It's a very convenient one, you'll admit, and a Virginian don't care to go far out of his way in such things." "You will think me critical this morning, Cousin Sudie, but I often wonder at the carelessness, not of Virginians only, but of everybody else, in the use of contractions. 'Don't,' for instance, is well enough as a contraction for 'do not, but nearly everybody uses it, as you did just now, for 'does not.'" "Do don't lecture me, Cousin Robert. I'm a heretic, I tell you, in grammar." "'Do don't' is the richest provincialism I have heard yet, Cousin Sudie. I really must make a note of that." "Cousin Robert, do you read Montaigne?" "Sometimes. Why?" "Do you remember what he says about custom and grammar?" "No. What is it?" "He says it, remember, and not I. He says 'they that fight custom with grammar are fools.' What a rude old fellow he was, wasn't he?" Mr. Pagebrook suddenly remembered that he was to dine that day at his cousin Edwin's house, and that it was time for him to go, as he intended to walk, Graybeard having fallen lame during that morning's gallop with Miss Sudie. CHAPTER IX. _Mr. Pagebrook Meets an Acquaintance._ Mr. Robert left the house on his way to The Oaks in an excellent humor with himself and with everybody else. His cousin Billy and his uncle Col. Barksdale were both absent, in attendance upon a court in another county, and so Mr. Robert had recently been left almost alone with Miss Sudie, and now that they had become the very best of friends our young man enjoyed this state of affairs right heartily. In truth Miss Sudie was a young lady very much to Mr. Robert's taste, in saying which I pay that young gentleman as handsome a compliment as any well regulated man could wish. Mr. Robert walked briskly out of the front gate and down the road, enjoying the bright sun and the rich coloring of the October woodlands, and making merry in his heart by running over in his memory the chats he had been having of late with the little woman who carried the keys at Shirley. If he had been forced to tell precisely what had been said in those conversations, it must be confessed that a stranger would have found very little of interest in the repetition, but somehow the recollection brought a frequent smile to our young friend's face and put an additional springiness into his step. His intercourse with this cousin by brevet may not have been especially brilliant or of a nature calculated to be particularly interesting to other people, but to him it had been extremely agreeable, without doubt. "Mornin' Mas' Robert," said Phil, as Robert passed the place at which the old negro was working. "How is ye dis mornin'?" "Good morning, Phil. I am very well, I thank you. How are you, Phil?"