The way he held his head was enough, with his chin fixed hard like a certainty (especially during his biggest lie), not a sign of a smile in his lips or nose, but a power of not laughing; and his eyes not turning to anybody, unless somebody had too much of it (as young girls always do) and went over the brink of laughter.

Thereupon it was good to see John Fry; how he looked gravely first at the laughter, as much as to ask, 'What is it now ?' then if the fool went laughing more, as he or she was sure to do upon that dry inquiry, John would look again, to be sure of it, and then at somebody else to learn whether the laugh had company; then if he got another grin, all his mirth came out in glory, with a sudden break; and he wiped his lips, and was grave again.
Now John, being too much encouraged by the girls (of which I could never break them), came into the house that December evening, with every inch of him full of a tale.

Annie saw it, and Lizzie, of course; and even I, in the gloom of great evils, perceived that John was a loaded gun; but I did not care to explode him.

Now nothing primed him so hotly as this: if you wanted to hear all John Fry had heard, the surest of all sure ways to it was, to pretend not to care for a word of it.
'I wor over to Exeford in the morning,' John began from the chimney-corner, looking straight at Annie; 'for to zee a little calve, Jan, as us cuddn't get thee to lave houze about.

Meesus have got a quare vancy vor un, from wutt her have heer'd of the brade.