"Is he really?" Clementina was a while silent. At last she said, "Don't
you think Mr. Gregory has a good many freckles?"

"Well, them red-complected kind is liable to freckle," said Mrs. Atwell,
judicially.

After rather a long pause for both of them, Clementina asked, "Do you
think it would be nice for me to ask Mr. Gregory about things, when I
wasn't suttain?"

"Like what?"

"Oh-wo'ds, and pronunciation; and books to read."

"Why, I presume he'd love to have you. He's always correctin' the guls; I
see him take up a book one day, that one of 'em was readin', and when she
as't him about it, he said it was rubbage. I guess you couldn't have a
betta guide."

"Well, that was what I was thinking. I guess I sha'n't do it, though. I
sh'd neva have the courage." Clementina laughed and then fell rather
seriously silent again.




VII.

One day the shoeman stopped his wagon at the door of the helps' house,
and called up at its windows, "Well, guls, any of you want to git a numba