78 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



tice. The milk and butter (which was not in the least salted) 

 were very sweet and high-flavored. 



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 re- 

 finement 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 laborers 

 whom 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 steadily animated 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 landlady, there is a rich musical tone in the conversa- 

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

 it compels us to listen deferentially. I wonder that beauty of 

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

 capable of great cultivation, and should not be forgotten in edu- 

 cation. 



Except in the lower class, the choice of words seems often 

 elegant, and we hear 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 educa- 

 ted 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 " H" difficulty is an exception to all this, with 

 nearly all the people, except the most polished, that we have met. 



