get him just soaked through wi sunshine. An we munnot lose no time
about it.
When he was very much interested he often spoke quite broad Yorkshire
though at other times he tried to modify his dialect so that Mary could
better understand. But she loved his broad Yorkshire and had in fact
been trying to learn to speak it herself. So she spoke a little now.
Aye, that we mun, she said (which meant Yes, indeed, we must ).
I ll tell thee what us ll do first, she proceeded, and Dickon
grinned, because when the little wench tried to twist her tongue into
speaking Yorkshire it amused him very much. He s took a graidely fancy
to thee. He wants to see thee and he wants to see Soot an Captain.
When I go back to the house to talk to him I ll ax him if tha canna
come an see him tomorrow mornin an bring tha creatures wi thee an
then in a bit, when there s more leaves out, an happen a bud or two,
we ll get him to come out an tha shall push him in his chair an
we ll bring him here an show him everything.
When she stopped she was quite proud of herself. She had never made a
long speech in Yorkshire before and she had remembered very well.
Tha mun talk a bit o Yorkshire like that to Mester Colin, Dickon
chuckled. Tha ll make him laugh an there s nowt as good for ill folk
as laughin is. Mother says she believes as half a hour s good laugh
every mornin ud cure a chap as was makin ready for typhus fever.
I m going to talk Yorkshire to him this very day, said Mary,
chuckling herself.
The garden had reached the time when every day and every night it
seemed as if Magicians were passing through it drawing loveliness out
of the earth and the boughs with wands. It was hard to go away and
leave it all, particularly as Nut had actually crept on to her dress
and Shell had scrambled down the trunk of the apple-tree they sat under
and stayed there looking at her with inquiring eyes. But she went back
to the house and when she sat down close to Colin s bed he began to
sniff as Dickon did though not in such an experienced way.
You smell like flowers and and fresh things, he cried out quite
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