74 THE COUSINS.

“They don’t! they don’t talk like negroes any
more than you do; and if they did, the negroes
are a great deal better than you—a great deal
better ; and I love them better, and I would
rather talk like them, and I will talk like them ;
I will say do don’t, buckra, en’t it, neber, yerre,
cungo—” *

Mary was stringing together every negro ex-
pression she had ever heard, and many which she
had never used. How much longer the list
would have been we know not, but Mary felt a
hand laid softly on her head, and, looking up, she
met the grave, earnest eyes of Uncle Lovett.
Completely overpowered by her emotions, she
cast herself into his arms, sobbing, ‘‘ Oh, let me
go home! let me go home to my own papa, where
nobody will laugh at me.”

“Nobody shall laugh at you here, my dear
child; nobody would laugh at you who was not

* Do don’t, which is not a negro expression, but only a
provincialism common to the people of the South, has been
already explained; duckra means white man or woman;
en’t it, is it not so; nedber, never; yerre, hear; cungo,
come, let us go.