you are none of the best linguister; and then Miss Lizzy has been exercising the King's English under a great Lon'on lady, and, for that matter, can talk the language almost as well as myself, or any native born British subject. You've forgot your schooling, and the young mistress is a great scollard."
"Mistress!" cried Remarkable; "don't make one out to be a nigger, Benjamin. She's no mistress of mine, and never will be. And as to speech, I hold myself as second to nobody out of New-England. I was born and raised in Essex county; and I've always heer'n say, that the Bay State was provarbal for pronounsation!"
"I've often heard of that Bay of State," said Benjamin; "but can't say that I've ever been in it, nor do I know exactly where away it is that it lays; but I suppose that there's good anchorage in it, and that it's no bad place for the taking of ling; but for size, it can't be so much as a yawl to a sloop of war, compared with the bay of Biscay, or mayhap, Tor-bay. And as for language, if you want to hear dictionary overhauled, like a log-line in a blow, you must go to Wapping, and listen to the Lon'oners, as they deal out their lingo. Howsomever, I see no such mighty matter that Miss Lizzy has been doing to you, good woman, so take another drop of your brew, and forgive and forget, like an honest soul."
"No, indeed! and I shan't do sitch a thing, Benjamin. This treatment is a newity to me, and what I won't put up with. I have a hundred and fifty dollars at use, besides a bed and twenty sheep, to good; and I don't crave to live in a house where a body mus'nt call a young woman by her given name to her face. I will call her Betsy as much as I please; its a free country, and nobody can stop me. I did intend to stop
