chatter

“Some bat’s chatter of Shere Khan,” he called back.

They boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter and all is forgotten.

But this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it rather difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk mental processes he thought that he “kind of liked her chatter.” So he said as shyly as usual:

Not that Matthew complained, to be sure; he listened to it all with a wordless smile of enjoyment on his face; Marilla permitted the “chatter” until she found herself becoming too interested in it, whereupon she always promptly quenched Anne by a curt command to hold her tongue.