I give her an old legend or some fragment of folk-lore, and straight-way she dishes it up for me as if it had been bone of her bone and marrow of her marrow; she knows just what to leave out and what to put in, somehow.

You had one of your happy inspirations about that girl, Margaret,--she is a born story-teller.

She ought to wander about the country with a lute under her arm.

Is the Olivers' house insured ?" "Good gracious, Jack! you have a kangaroo sort of mind! How did you leap to that subject?
I'm sure I don't know, but what difference does it make, anyway ?" "A good deal of difference," he answered nervously, looking into the library (yes, Polly had gone out); "because the house, the furniture, and the stable were burned to the ground last night,--so the morning paper says." Mrs.Bird rose and closed the doors.

"That does seem too dreadful to be true," she said.