re ain't much difference between the
gentry and other sorts. I don't see very much of them myself in the
houses I goes to, but I hears plenty about them from the servants' talk;
and, judging from that, a great many of them 'as just as nasty and
unpleasant ways as other people."

"I suppose," Harry said thoughtfully, "there can't be much difference in
real nature between them and us; there must, of course, be good and bad
among them; but there is more difference in their way of talking than I
expected."

"Well, of course, Harry; they have had education, that accounts for it;
just the same as you, who have educated yourself wonderful, talks
different to John and me and the rest of us."

"Yes," Harry said; "but I am not talking about mistakes in grammar; it's
the tone of voice, and the way of speaking that's so different. Now why
should that be, mother?"

"I suppose a good deal of it," Mrs. Holl answered, "is because they are
brought up in nusseries, and they can't run about the house, or holloa
or shout to each other in the streets. D' ye see they are taught to
speak quiet, and they hear their fathers and mothers, and people round
them, speaking quiet. You dun't know, Harry, how still it is in some of
them big houses, you seem half afraid to speak above a whisper."

"Yes, but I don't think he spoke lower than I do, mother, or than the
rest of us. O mother!" he went on, after a while, "isn't he good? Just
to think of his spending an hour and a half sitting here, showing me how
to construe. Why, I see the whole thing in a different way now; he has
made clear all sorts of things that I could not understand; and he said
he would come again too, and I am quite sure that when he says a thing
he means to do it. I don't believe he could tell a lie if he tried. And
is he not good-looking too?"

"He is a pleasant-looking young chap," Mrs. Holl replied, "but I should
not call him anything out of the way. Now I should call you a
better-looking chap than he is, Harry."

"O mother, what an idea!" Harry exclaimed, quite shocked at what seemed
to him a most disrespectful comparison to his hero.

"It ain't no idea at all," Mrs. Holl rejoined stoutly; "any one with
eyes in his head could see that if you was dressed the same as he is you
would be a sight the best-looking chap of the two."

"Ah mother!" Harry said, laughing, "you remind me of an old saying I saw
in a book the other day, 'A mother's geese are all swans.'"

"I am s