“I don’t know.  I guess I do.”

“My dear,” said Mrs. Snow, soberly, “This is a very solemn thing.”

“I don’t see it in that light,” said Miss Butterworth, indulging in a new fit of laughter.  “I wish I could, but it’s the funniest thing.  I wake up laughing over it, and I go to sleep laughing over it, and I say to myself, ‘what are you laughing at, you ridiculous creature?’”

“Well, I believe you are a ridiculous creature,” said Mrs. Snow.

“I know I am, and if anybody had told me a year ago that I should ever marry Jim Fenton, I—­”

“Jim Fenton!” exclaimed the whole Snow family.

“Well, what is there so strange about my marrying Jim Fenton?” and the little tailoress straightened in her chair, her eyes flashing, and the color mounting to her face.

“Oh, nothing; but you know—­it’s such a surprise—­he’s so—­he’s so—­well he’s a—­not cultivated—­never has seen much society, you know; and lives almost out of the world, as it were.”

“Oh, no!  He isn’t cultivated!  He ought to have been brought up in Sevenoaks and polished!  He ought to have been subjected to the civilizing and refining influences of Bob Belcher!”

“Now, you mustn’t be offended, Keziah.  We are all your friends, and anxious for your welfare.”

“But you think Jim Fenton is a brute.”

“I have said nothing of the kind.”

“But you think so.”

“I think you ought to know him better than I do.”

“Well, I do, and he is just the loveliest, manliest, noblest, splendidest old fellow that ever lived.  I don’t care if he does live out of the world.  I’d go with him, and live with him, if he used the North Pole for a back log.  Fah!  I hate a slick man.  Jim has spoiled me for anything but a true man in the rough.  There’s more pluck in his old shoes than you can find in all the men of Sevenoaks put together.  And he’s as tender—­Oh, Mrs. Snow!  Oh, girls!  He’s as tender as a baby—­just as tender as a baby!  He has said to me the most wonderful things!  I wish I could remember them.  I never can, and I couldn’t say them as he does if I could.  Since I became acquainted with him, it seems as if the world had been made all over new.  I’d become kind o’ tired of human nature, you know.  It seemed sometimes as if it was just as well to be a cow as a woman; but I’ve become so much to him, and he has become so much to me, that all the men and women around me have grown beautiful.  And he loves me in a way that is so strong—­and so protecting—­and so sweet and careful—­that—­now don’t you laugh, or you’ll make me angry—­I’d feel safer in his arms than I would in a church.”

“Well, I’m sure!” exclaimed Mrs. Snow.

“Isn’t it remarkable!” said Miss Snow.

“Quite delightful!” exclaimed the second sister, whose enthusiasm could not be crammed into Miss Snow’s expression.

“Really charming,” added Number Three.