"I'd like you just to hear him when you ain't at hand. That's all."
"Anyway, it ain't our business. I'm not given to meddling with other folk's concerns—never was."
"Shouldn't wonder if it is your business—more than you think." Plunkett shook his head; and she added with sharpness—"If you don't see to it, you'll lose Marigold—next thing."
"Lose Marigold!" Plunkett stared as if his wife were demented.
"Oh, you don't see—of course you don't. You men never see nothing! 'Tisn't you he comes mooning after, and you needn't think it! Marigold's tiresome enough some ways, but she ain't a bad-looking girl by any manner of means, and a young fellow like him knows it too."
"Marigold! Why—bless me! The girl ain't hardly eighteen."
"That's it! And James Todd is twenty-three. I won't go for to say that a man mayn't never marry at twenty-three, if he's got enough to marry on, and to keep a family in comfort. But if he hasn't—and James Todd hasn't—I say it's a sin and a shame. Who does he mean to keep his wife for him, I wonder?"
"I'll tell you what it is, Jane!" Plunkett waxed red in the face, and brought down his hand with a thump upon the table. "I'll tell you what it is—I'm not a-going to have nothing of that sort! A lass barely eighteen, and a lad without a penny to his name! It's folly. I've not got a word to say agin my girls marrying, all in good time, if it's a man I can approve of; and when that time comes, I'll not say no. But Todd,—why, he's got nothing to put in his own mouth, except what his old father gives him. I like him well enough; but I do say it's a disgrace for a lusty young fellow to be depending on his old father, and I wouldn't mind if I said it to Todd's face. And what's more, though I like the lad, I'm afraid he's not got much work in him. Never had, and maybe never will have. That's what it is; and a man who's got no work in him, ain't good for anything. If Todd marries, as like as not his wife 'll have to keep him; and that's a nice look-out for any girl. But Marigold ain't a fool. Marigold's got sense in her head, and she knows better than to take to Todd."
"Don't you be too sure. If she does take a fancy to him, her sense won't have much to say in the matter. I know the ways of girls."
"Well, it isn't to be! You mind that. She shan't have him, and he shan't have her. So you just see to it. I'll have no sort of nonsense between them two. So mind you take care."