"Can't you say 'her'?" cried Lancelot, cutting her short impatiently.
"Her," said Mary Ann.
"Then why do you say ''er'?"
"Missus told me to. She said my own way was all wrong."
"Oh, indeed!" said Lancelot. "It's missus that has corrupted you, is it? And pray what used you to say?"
"She," said Mary Ann.
Lancelot was taken aback. "She!" he repeated.
"Yessir," said Mary Ann, with a dawning suspicion that her own vocabulary was going to be vindicated; "whenever I said 'she' she made me say ''er,' and whenever I said 'her' she made me say 'she.' When I said 'her and me' she made me say 'me and she,' and when I said 'I got it from she,' she made me say 'I got it from ''er.'"
"Bravo! A very lucid exposition," said Lancelot, laughing. "Did she set you right in any other particulars?"
"Eessir—I mean yessir," replied Mary Ann, the forbidden words flying to her lips like prisoned skylarks suddenly set free. "I used to say, 'Gie I thek there broom, oo't?' 'Arten thee goin' to?' 'Her did say to I.' 'I be goin' on to bed.' 'Look at—'"