talk. I hope I shall come in time to talking lofty without
thinking about it. Why do I have to, Hat, after all? I've lived among
educated people. Wasn't the Judge highly educated? And nobody ever found
fault with my way of talking. My folks all had been to school and read
books. And didn't I go to school till I was fourteen? And didn't I
graduate from the grammar school with the rest? What's the matter with
my natural way of talking?"

"It's all right at home, Nell, but it's different over here. They're a
different kind of people we're thrown with."

"This pernickety way of talking never sounds cozy or friendly one bit.
We're as good as anybody, of course, but when I say 'I am not, he does
not,' I always feel as if I were setting up to be better than the
rest!--Oh, it isn't, is it? Oh, do you say so? 'Between you and I' isn't
correct? But I thought you told me.... To Jericho, Hattie! How's a
feller ever going to get to know?"

"Listen, Nell, while I go over it again. When you say----"

"Ah, no! Not at this time of night, Estelle! Let me live in ignorance
till morning! You know all those sorts of things, my dear Estelle,
because you're paid by the government to know them. I don't; but I know
lots and lots of things that are a sight funnier."

She grabbed one of the pillows and flung it at her friend, who flung it
back at her; and the simple creatures laughed.

Aurora re-tied in a bow the blue ribbon that closed the collar of her
nightgown, and settled back again, with her arms out on the white satin
quilt, flowered with roses and lined with blue. The two braids of her
fair hair lay, one on each side, down her big, frank, undisguised bosom.

"You heaping dish of vanilla ice-cream!" said Hattie.

"You stick of rhubarb!" said Nell. "Stop, Hat! Behave! Do you suppose
all the people we've invited to come and see us will come?"

"Doctor Chandler will come. And the Hunt girls will come. And Madame
Bentivoglio I guess will come."

"Yes, and the Satterlees I'm sure will come. And Mrs. Seymour and her
daughter that I said I'd help with the church fair. And the minister;
what was it? Spottiswood."

"And won't the Mr. Hunt come that you seemed to be having such a good
time with?"

"Yes, he'll come. He'll come to-morrow, I shouldn't wonder. Then that
thinnish fellow with the hair like a hearth-brush--did you meet him? Mr.
Fane, a great friend of the Fosses. He's coming to take us
sight-seeing." She yawned a wide, audib