"Well, you speak sort o' queer, but my old man was English, too, a
Norfolk man, and blest if I could understand quarter he said for ever so
long after we got keeping company. I used to say yes to everything I
didn't understand when we was alone, for fear he might be popping the
question; but laws, I knew well enough when he did ask."

She fell into an apparently pleasant reverie, but soon returned to the
actualities of life.

"You're not married, surely."

I answered in the negative with fewest possible words.

"Got a young man, though, I'll warrant; such a likely girl."

"I do not understand what you mean," I answered with considerable
dignity, glad to let her know that her own English was not perfect.

"You must have been riz in a queer place not to know what likely is. Why,
it's good-looking; and anybody knows you're that. But I suppose you
didn't have much eddication, they mostly don't in England; my man didn't
know even his letters; but I have pretty good book larnin' and so we got
on all right," she continued, with a retrospective look on her not
unkindly face.

"Who might your folks be in Cavendish?" she asked, after a few moments of
welcome silence.

"I have no relatives there," I answered, I am afraid, rather