"Great heaven!" I ejaculated. "Why could you not say so before?"
"I didn't like to interrupt you."
"Here I have been talking for a good hour—"
"Two hours," she nodded; "indeed, you're a wonderful talker!"
"But all to no purpose it seems!" said I ruefully.
"No," she answered, "it has helped to pass the time and I knows that a noun is a tree."
"Oh, indeed!" quoth I. "And what more have you learned?"
"That if you add to a verb it's an adverb, though both are much of a muchness, and an adjective is not like either, though they all has summat to do with a tree we passed a long time ago."
At this I gasped and sinking down in a shady spot, fanned myself feebly with my hat.
"My poor child," said I mournfully, "my poor—"