"Oh, no! He isn't cultivated! He ought to have been brought up in Sevenoaks and polished! He ought to have been subjected to the civilizing and refining influences of Bob Belcher!" "Now, you mustn't be offended, Keziah. We are all your friends, and anxious for your welfare." "But you think Jim Fenton is a brute." "I have said nothing of the kind." "But you think so." "I think you ought to know him better than I do." "Well, I do, and he is just the loveliest, manliest, noblest, splendidest old fellow that ever lived. I don't care if he does live out of the world. I'd go with him, and live with him, if he used the North Pole for a back log. Fah! I hate a slick man. Jim has spoiled me for anything but a true man in the rough. There's more pluck in his old shoes than you can find in all the men of Sevenoaks put together. And he's as tender--Oh, Mrs. Snow! Oh, girls! He's as tender as a baby--just as tender as a baby! He has said to me the most wonderful things! I wish I could remember them. I never can, and I couldn't say them as he does if I could. Since I became acquainted with him, it seems as if the world had been made all over new. I'd become kind o' tired of human nature, you know. It seemed sometimes as if it was just as well to be a cow as a woman; but I've become so much to him, and he has become so much to me, that all the men and women around me have grown beautiful. And he loves me in a way that is so strong--and so protecting--and so sweet and careful--that--now don't you laugh, or you'll make me angry--I'd feel safer in his arms than I would in a church." "Well, I'm sure!" exclaimed Mrs. Snow. "Isn't it remarkable!" said Miss Snow. "Quite delightful!" exclaimed the second sister, whose enthusiasm could not be crammed into Miss Snow's expression. "Really charming," added Number Three. "You are quite sure you don't know what you want to marry him for?" said Mrs. Snow, with a roguish twinkle in her eye. "You are quite sure you don't love him?" "Oh, I don't know," said Miss Butterworth. "It's something. I wish you could hear him talk. His grammar would kill you. It would just kill you. You'd never breathe after it. Such awful nominative cases as that man has! And you can't beat him out of them. And such a pronunciation! His words are just as rough as he is, and just like him. They seem to have a great deal more meaning in them than they do when they have good clothes on. You don't know how I enjoy hearing him talk." "I'm inclined to think you love him," said Mrs. Snow, smiling. "I don't know. Isn't it the most ridiculous thing, now?" "No; it isn't ridiculous at all," said Mrs. Snow, soberly. Miss Butterworth's moon was sailing high that evening. There were but few clouds in her heaven, but occasionally a tender vapor passed across the silver disk, and one passed at this moment. Her eyes were loaded with tears as she looked up in Mrs. Snow's face, and said: