"A very pretty, modest maid."
"Alferd might do worse; I allows that."
"So do I, Susan."
Mrs. Yellam hesitated, and then said slowly:
"Alferd be fair daffy about her, that's a fact. Miffed as I may well be at his choosin' a sweetheart who looks, seemin'ly, as if a puff o' wind'd blow her bang out o' parish, I sticks to what I says, the boy might ha' done worse."
"Boy, indeed! He be a man."
"'Tis true. And the multiplication-table, one might say, be made for him rather than her. Alfred did tell me las' night that an auntie, on her mother's side, bore twins twice. But as to that, we women be all in God A'mighty's hands."
"Then Alferd have told 'ee as he wants her?"
"Don't 'ee repeat it. He have."
"Then he'll get her. A big strong feller like that feels wonnerful cuddlesome when he comes acrost they delicate, abstemious females. 'Tis as sartain as we be sitting here that he'll put the question in his own good time."