"Now, Denis, you are at your deep larning from the books again. Can't
you keep your reading for them that undherstands it, an' not be spakin'
so Englified to a simple girl like me?"

"There is logic in that same, however. Do you know, Susan, I have often
thought that, provided always you had resaved proper instruction, you
would have made a first-rate classical scholar."

"So you tould me, Denis, the Sunday we exchanged the promise. But sure
when you get me, I can larn it. Won't you tache me, Denis?"

She turned her laughing eyes archly at him as she spoke, with a look of
joy and affection: it was a look, indeed, that staggered for the moment
every ecclesiastical resolution within him. He returned her glance, and
ran over the features of her pure and beautiful countenance for some
minutes; then, placing his open hand upon his eyes, he seemed buried in
reflection. At length he addressed her:--

"Susan, I am thinking of that same Sunday evening on which we exchanged
the hand-promise. I say, Susan,--_dimidium animae meae_--I am in the
act of meditating upon it; and sorry am I to be compel--to be under the
neces--to be reduced, I say--that is redact as in the larned langua--:
in other words--or terms, indeed, is more elegant--in other terms,
then, Susan, I fear that what I just now alluded to, touching the _fama
clamosa_ which is current about me this day, will render that promise a
rather premature one on both our parts. Some bachelors in my situation
might be disposed to call it foolish, but I entertain a reverence--a
veneration for the feelings of the feminine sex, that inclines me to use
the mildest and most classical language in divulging the change that has