THE ENGLISH IN CONVERSATION. 95 



(which was not in the least salted) were very sweet and high- 

 flavoured. 



In the evening we had a long talk with the old woman 

 and her daughter. The latter was a handsome person with 

 much such a good, beaming face as her mother, but with youth, 

 and more refinement from education and intelligence. She 

 also was a widow with two sweet, shy little girls. 



There are peculiarities in the speech of these women that 

 would distinguish them anywhere from native Americans. 

 Perhaps the novelty of them is pleasing, but it has seemed 

 to us that the speech of most of the people above the lowest 

 class of labourers that we have met, is more agreeable and 

 better than we often hear at home. Perhaps the climate 

 may have effect in making the people more habitually ani 

 mated the utterance more distinct and varied. Sentences 

 are more generally finished with a rising inflection, syllables 

 are more forcibly accented, and quite often, as with our land 

 lady, there is a rich musical tone in the conversational voice 

 to which we are not yet so much accustomed, but that it 

 compels us to listen deferentially. 1 wonder that beauty of 

 speech is not more thought of as an accomplishment. It is 

 surely capable of great cultivation, and should not be for 

 gotten in education. 



Except in the lower class, the choice of words seems 

 often elegant, and we hear very few idiomatic phrases or 

 provincialisms. Where we do notice them, in the class I am 

 now speaking of, it would not seem an affectation of singular 

 language in an educated person with us, but rather a fortunate 

 command of vigorous Saxon words. We have never any 

 difficulty in understanding them, while we do sometimes 

 have to reconstruct our sentences, and find substitutes for 

 some of our words, before we are plainly understood. The 

 &quot;H&quot; difficulty is an exception to all this, with nearly all the 



