And Mrs.Ferret, with her jerky voice, and a smile that was meant to be an expression of mingled cheerfulness and intelligence, but which expressed neither, said: "Is your brother a Christian ?" And Katy said he was a dear, dear fellow, but she didn't know as he was a church-member.
"Does he hold scriptural views?
You know so many people in colleges are not evangelical." Mrs.Ferret had a provoking way of pronouncing certain words unctuously--she said "Chrishchen" "shcripcherral," and even in the word evangelical she made the first _e_ very hard and long.
And when little Katy could not tell whether Albert held "shcripcherral" views or not, and was thoroughly tired of being quizzed as to whether she "really thought Albert had a personal interest in religion," she made an excuse to run away into the chamber of Mrs.Morrow, Mrs.Ferret's mother, who was an invalid--Mrs.Ferret said "inva_leed_," for the sake of emphasis.

The old lady never asked impertinent questions, never talked about "shcripcherral" or "ee-vangelical" views, but nevertheless breathed an atmosphere of scriptural patience and evangelical fortitude and Christian victory over the world's tribulations.

Little Katy couldn't have defined, the difference between the two in words; she never attempted it but once, and then she said that Mrs.Ferret was like a crabapple, and her mother like a Bartlett pear.
But she was too much excited to stay long in one place, and so she hurried home and went to talking to Cousin Isa, who was sewing by the west window.

And to her she poured forth praises of Albert without stint; of his immense knowledge of everything, of his goodness and his beauty and his strength, and his voice, and his eyes.
"And you'll love him better'n you ever loved anybody," she wound up.
And Cousin Isa said she didn't know about that.
After all this weary waiting Albert had come.

He had not been at home for two years.