“Well—five pounds; and ’t will be rose to ten by Christmas, I assure ’e.”
“Fi’ puns! an’ how far ’s that gwaine?”
“So far as us can make it, in coourse.”
“Doan’t you see, sonny, this ban’t a fair bargain? I’m not a hard man—”
“By gor! not hard enough by a powerful deal,” said Billy.
“Not hard on youth; but this match, so to call it, looks like mere moonshine. Theer ’s nought to it I can see—both childer, and neither with as much sense as might sink a floatin’ straw.”
“We love each other wi’ all our hearts and have done more ’n half a year. Ban’t that nothing?”
“I married when I was forty-two,” remarked the miller, reflectively, looking down at his fox-head slippers, the work of Phoebe’s fingers.
“An’ a purty marryin’ time tu!” declared Mr. Blee. “Look at me,” he continued, “parlous near seventy, and a bacherlor-man yet.”
“Not but Widow Comstock will have ’e if you ax her a bit oftener. Us all knows that,” said the young lover, with great stratagem.