Page:Crawford - Love in idleness.djvu/80

 Fanny looked round and met Lawrence's eyes.

"You seem to be the only one who is ready," she said, laughing again. "One isn't a crowd, as the little boys say."

"Where do you get such expressions, my dear child? " asked Cordelia. "I really think you've learned more slang since you've been here this summer, though I shouldn't have believed it possible!"

"There!" exclaimed Fanny, turning to Mr. Brinsley again. "That's the kind of flattery my relatives lavish on me from morning till night! As if you didn't all talk slang, the whole time!"

"Fanny!" protested Augusta, whose accomplishments made her sensitive and conscious. "How can you say so?"

"Well—dialect, if you like the word better. I'll prove it you. You all say 'won't' and 'shan't'—and most of you say 'I'd like'—for instance—and Mr. Brinsley says 'ain't,' because he's English—"

"Well—what ought we to say?" asked