'Hilda!'

'I mean what I say. But there may be something else. The difference may
be there because I have not learned the same outward manners as the
city people, because I do not laugh when they would laugh, cry when
they would cry, act as they would act. I do not know half the things
they like, or do, or say, but from what I have read I fancy that they
are not at all simple, nor straightforward in their likings and
dislikes, nor in their speech either. I do not even know whether I look
like them, nor whether if I went to their places they would not take me
for some strange wild animal. I make my own clothes. I have heard that
they spend for one bit of dress as much as my mother and I spend in a
whole year upon everything. I suppose they do, for your mother must
wear what people wear in towns, and her things must cost a great deal.
I think I should feel uncomfortable in them, but if we are married I
will wear what you please--'

'How can you say such things--'

'I am only going over the points in which I am different from other
women. That is one of them. Then I believe they learn all sorts of
tricks--they can play on the piano--I have never seen one, for it is
the only thing you have not got at Greifenstein,--they draw and paint,
they talk in more than one language, whereas I only know what little
French my mother could teach me, they sing from written music--for that
matter, I can sing without, which I suppose ought to be harder. But
they can do all those little things, which I suppose amuse you, and of
which I cannot do one. Perhaps those accomplishments, or tricks, change
them so that they feel more than I do. But I do not believe it. If I