“Very well, I won’t bother you.”
Then after a little silence the man spoke again.
“Those letters of yours was mortal fine,” he said. “Seems to me I could most find my way around London, with its stores an’ nigglin’ trails. It’s a tol’ble city. A mighty good eddication, travelin’.”
“I suppose it is.” Rosebud seemed to have lost her desire for conversation.
“Makes you think some,” Seth went on, heedless of the girl’s abstraction. “Makes you feel as the sun don’t jest rise and set on your own p’tickler patch o’ ploughin’. Makes you feel you’re kind o’ like a grain o’ wheat at seedin’ time. I allow a man don’t amount to a heap noways.”
Rosebud turned on him with a bright smile in her wonderful eyes.
“That depends, Seth. I should say a man is as he chooses to make himself. I met a lot of men in England; some of them were much better than others. Some were extremely nice.”
“Ah.” Seth turned his earnest eyes on the girl’s face. He lost the significance of the mischievous down-turning of the corners of her mouth. “I guess them gilt-edge folk are a dandy lot. Y’ see them ’lords’ an’ such, they’ve got to be pretty nigh the mark.”
“Why, yes, I suppose they have.” 257
There was another brief pause while the man’s eyes glanced keenly about.