"Pray don't mind it," she said, "pray don't, really--let it be--"
But Whiskey Dick, feeling himself on safe ground in this attention,
persisted to the bitter end of a disintegrated and well-worn
"Travatore." "So that is what Mr. Munroe said," she remarked quietly.

"Not just then, in course, but it's what's bin on his mind and in his
talk for days off and on," returned Dick, with a knowing smile and a nod
of mysterious confidence. "Bless your soul, Miss Carr, folks like you
and me don't need to have them things explained. That's what I said to
him, sez I. 'Don't send no note, but just go up there and hev it out
fair and square, and say what you do mean.' But they would hev the note,
and I kalkilated to bring it. But when I set my eyes on you, and heard
you express yourself as you did just now, I sez to myself, sez I, 'Dick,
yer's a young lady, and a fash'nable lady at that, ez don't go foolin'
round on rules and etiketts'--excuse my freedom, Miss Carr--'and you and
her, sez I, 'kin just discuss this yer matter in a sociable, off-hand,
fash'nable way.' They're a good lot o' boys, Miss Carr, a square
lot--white men all of 'em; but they're a little soft and green, may be,
from livin' in these yer pine woods along o' the other sap. They just
worship the ground you and your sister tread on--certain! of course!
of course!" he added hurriedly, recognizing Christie's half-conscious,
deprecating gesture with more exaggerated deprecation. "I understand.
But what I wanter say is that they'd be willin' to be that ground,
and lie down and let you walk over them--so to speak, Miss Carr, so to
speak--if it would keep the hem of your gown from gettin' soiled in the
mud o' the camp. But it wouldn't do for them to make a reg'lar curderoy
road o' themselves for the houl camp to trapse over, on the mere chance
of your some time passin' that way, would it now?"