"You're Sussex!" he cried, falling into the old broad speech in his turn. "I'd knaw ye anywheres."
Her whole face gladdened slowly as she heard the familiar accent.
"Never!" she said, still faintly ironical, and added more sedately. "I was bred and born in Sussex, and never been outside it."
"And never mean to be," chaffed Ernie. "That's your style. I knaw ye."
"I was borrn in the Brooks at Aldwoldston," she continued, pronouncing the word Auston. "Along under the church by the White Bridge across Parson's Tye. Dad was Squire Caryll's keeper till he was ate up with the rheumatism." Her speech broadened even as she spoke, deliberately, he thought, to meet his own.
He followed suit.
The pair began to ca-a-a away at each other like a couple of old rooks in an elm in May.
"What might be your name then?"
"Ruth Boam, I believe."
Ernie nodded sagaciously.