cockle, aracus, […] and other degenerations

Coordinate term: muzzle

Then we relapsed into a discomfited silence, and wished we were anywhere else. But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, and with such a hearty enjoyment that instead of getting angry and more mortified we began to laugh ourselves, and instantly felt better.

Furuseth was right; I was abnormal, an emotionless monster, a strange bookish creature, capable of pleasuring in sensations only of the mind.