querulous, refined voice. "Your grammar is dreadful!"

"I don't mean no such thing. I mean I didn't hear _nothin'_ and
nothin' it is." And Barbara's meek, faded old eyes glared at the
little old lady in the corner, if meek, faded blue eyes could glare.

"Never mind her grammar, Lodema Ann. Why didn't you hear what they
said? What was you doin' in the hall if you wasn't listenin'?"

"I told you I was just passin' through and Mis' Smith called me in."

"Don't you know nothin' about it--_nothin'!"_

"Nothin'. I've told you all I know. Can I take my teeth out now?"

"No, Barbara; keep your teeth in till we've finished with you. A
person can't understand a word you say with your teeth out, you gum
your words so."

"But they hurt me; they don't fit. I ain't had a new pair for twenty
years and my jaws've shrunk."

"Well, keep 'em in fer a while. They won't shrink any more fer a
minit. Did they look like relations?"

"Relations!" said a big, placid-looking woman who was knitting
quietly. "Drusilla ain't got no relations. She ain't never had none."

"She must have had some at one time. Everybody has relations--
although _some_ people I know, had rather be without them than