this remark more than a courteous

Spunk, real, Simon-pure spunk, started somewhere in Patty and coursed through her blood like wine. "If a girl's old enough to stay at home and work, I should think she was old enough to go out and play once in a while." Patty was still too timid to make this remark more than a courteous suggestion, so far as its tone was concerned. "Don't answer me back; you're full of new tricks, and you've got to stop 'em, right where you are, or there'll be trouble. You were whistlin' just now up in the barn chamber; that's one of the things I won't have round my premises,--a whistlin' girl." "'T was a Sabbath-School hymn that I was whistling!" This with a creditable imitation of defiance. "That don't make it any better. Sing your hymns if you must make a noise while you're workin'." "It's the same mouth that makes the whistle and sings the song, so I don't see why one's any wickeder than the other." "You don't have to see," replied the Deacon grimly; "all you have to do is to mind when you're spoken to. Now run 'long 'bout your work." "Can't I go up to Ellen's, then?" "What's goin' on up there?" "Just a frolic. There's always a good time at Ellen's, and I would so like the sight of a big, rich house now and then!" "'Just a frolic.' Land o' Goshen, hear the girl! 'Sight of a big, rich house,' indeed!--Will there be any boys at the party?" "I s'pose so, or 't wouldn't be a frolic," said Patty with awful daring; "but there won't be many; only a few of Mark's friends." "Well, there ain't goin' to be no more argyfyin'! I won't have any girl o' mine frolickin' with boys, so that's the end of it. You're kind o' crazy lately, riggin' yourself out with a ribbon here and a flower there, and pullin' your hair down over your ears. Why do you want to cover your ears up? What are they for?" "To hear you with, father," Patty replied, with honey-sweet voice and eyes that blazed. "Well, I hope they'll never hear anything worse," replied her father, flinging a bucket of water over the last of the wagon wheels. "THEY COULDN'T!" These words were never spoken aloud, but oh! how Patty longed to shout them with a clarion voice as she walked away in perfect silence, her majestic gait showing, she hoped, how she resented the outcome of the interview.