112 COUSIN PHILLIS.
as fully aware as I was of this tender pantomime, went on talking in a happier tone of voice about things as uninteresting to him, at the time, I very believe, as they were to me; and that is saying a good deal, and shows how much more real what was passing before him was, even to a farmer, than the agricultural customs of the ancients.
I remember one thing more, — an attack which Betty the servant made upon me one day as I came in through the kitchen where she was churning, and stopped to ask her for a drink of buttermilk.
"I say, cousin Paul," (she had adopted the family habit of addressing me generally as cousin Paul, and always speaking of me in that form,) "something's amiss with our Phillis, and I reckon you've a good guess what it is. She's not one to take up wi' such as you," (not complimentary, but that Betty never was, even to those for whom she felt the highest respect,) "but I'd as lief yon Holdsworth had never come near us. So there you've a bit o' my mind."
And a very unsatisfactory bit it was. I did not know what to answer to the glimpse at the real state of the case implied in the shrewd woman's speech; so I tried to put her off by assuming surprise at her first assertion.
"Amiss with Phillis! I should like to know why you think anything is wrong with her. She looks as blooming as any one can do."
"Poor lad! you're but a big child after all; and you've likely never beared of a fever-flush. But you know better nor that, my fine fellow! so don't think for to put me off wi' blooms and blossoms and such-like talk. What makes her walk about for hours and hours
