Very carefully Frenchy pronounced the clipped word.
"That's all, Joe; I s'pose book French is a good deal diff'rent from ord'nary Kanuck. 'Mosseer' is right anyhow, for the book says so. Teacher had ought to know enough to go by the book, I sh' think."
"Tain't her fault, Pa," I said, relenting. "She never went to any good school. I want to go somewhere where the teachers know a real lot; not just a little bit more than me. I want to go"—I paused to gain courage—"I want to go to the University, like—like Mr. Burke."
"The State University!" Pa repeated, in a tone of awe; "Thunder! Don't believe we could manage that, Sis."
"W'y, yes, y'can, too, Ezry," Aunt Keren argued, "seems to me you're forehanded enough, to do for an only child. 'Tain't 's if you was like me 'n' Ab., with our four chunies."
"She'd have to go to an academy first to get fitten for it," said Ma. "She couldn't go to the Univers'ty for three or four years yet."
"Of course not," I answered; "but you might write to Mr. Burke to send me a catalogue to find out how much I'd have to know to get taken in. Then I could study at home till I got pretty near ready, and then take a year at the Academy."
The words flowed easily, eagerly; I had so often gone over the plan.
"Good idee," said Pa, nodding his head, relieved to find that I wasn't seeking to leave home at once; and so it was arranged.
Isn't it wonderful? Plain and bald and homely the house, unpretending the surroundings, simple and primitive the life, that sent forth the world's first beautiful woman, the Woman of the Secret! I have tried to set it all down exactly as it happened—the quaint, old-fashioned dialect, the homely ways, the bearded, booted men. For this place, just as it was, was the birthplace of the new glory; out of this homely simplicity dawned the new era of beauty that is to make the whole world glad.