"Fanny!" protested Augusta, whose accomplishments made her sensitive and conscious. "How can you say so?"
"Well--dialect, if you like the word better. I'll prove it you. You all say 'won't' and 'shan't'--and most of you say 'I'd like'--for instance--and Mr. Brinsley says 'ain't,' because he's English--"
"Well--what ought we to say?" asked Augusta. "Nobody says 'I will not,' and all that."
"You ought to. It's dialect not to--and the absurd thing is that people who go in for writing books generally write out all the things you don't say, and write them in the wrong order. We say 'wouldn't you'--don't we? Well, doesn't that stand for 'would not you'? And yet they print 'would you not'--always. It's ridiculous. I read a criticism the other day on a man who had written a book and who wrote 'will not you' for 'won't you' and 'would not you' for 'wouldn't you' because he wanted to be accurate. You've no idea what horrid things the critic said of him--he simply stood on his hind legs and pawed the air! It's so silly! Either we should speak as we write, or write as we speak. I don't mean in philosophy--and things--the steam-engine and the descent of man, and all that--but in writing out conversations. But then, of course, nobody will agree with me--so I talk as I please."
"There's a great deal of truth in what you say, Miss Trehearne," observed Brinsley, assuming a wise air. "Besides, I beg to differ from Miss Miner, on one point--I venture to say that I don't dislike your slang, if it's slang at all. It's expressive, of its kind."
"At last!" cried Fanny, with a laugh. "I get some praise--faint, but perceptible."
"Faint praise isn't supposed to be complimentary," observed Lawrence, laughing too.
"That's true," answered Fanny. "It's just the opposite--the thing with a d-- I won't say it on account of Cordelia. She'd all frizzle up with horror if I said it--wouldn't you, dear? There'd positively be nothing left of you--nothing but a dear little withered rose-leaf with a dewdrop in the middle, representing your tears for my sins!"
"I'm afraid so," answered Cordelia, with a little accentuation of her tired smile.
It was not a disagreeable smile in itself, except that it was perpetual and was the expression of patiently and cheerfully borne adversity, rather than of any satisfaction with things in general. For the lives of the three Miss Miners had not been happy. Sometimes Fanny felt a sincere and loving pity for the three, and especially for the eldest. But there were also times when Cordelia's smile exasperated her beyond endurance.