Snow, soberly, "This is a very solemn thing."

"I don't see it in that light," said Miss Butterworth, indulging in a
new fit of laughter. "I wish I could, but it's the funniest thing. I
wake up laughing over it, and I go to sleep laughing over it, and I say
to myself, 'what are you laughing at, you ridiculous creature?'"

"Well, I believe you are a ridiculous creature," said Mrs. Snow.

"I know I am, and if anybody had told me a year ago that I should ever
marry Jim Fenton, I--"

"Jim Fenton!" exclaimed the whole Snow family.

"Well, what is there so strange about my marrying Jim Fenton?" and the
little tailoress straightened in her chair, her eyes flashing, and the
color mounting to her face.

"Oh, nothing; but you know--it's such a surprise--he's so--he's so--well
he's a--not cultivated--never has seen much society, you know; and lives
almost out of the world, as it were."

"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