DEB. I don’t think Allen will want a farmer’s wife, aunt.
MRS. R. Lord, whose wife should a farmer want, then?
DEB. (Pokes fire r.) I don’t think Allen wants to be a farmer at all. He says he wants to be a somebody, not a nobody.
MRS. R. Well, bean’t a farmer somebody?
DEB. Somebody, aunt, but not a somebody. Allen wants to be in the world, you know, aunt.
MRS. R. Well, and he be in the world sure, ain’t he? Sure I think I ought to know. (Cross to l.)
DEB. No, not in the world he means, aunt. Not in the great world as they call it.
MRS. R. Ah! he be in God’s world, that ought to be big enough for un. (Cross to r.)
DEB. (A little spitefully.) Yes, aunt, but it’s not select enough. There’s all sorts of common people in God’s world. Allen wants to be in the big world of lords and ladies and big folk up in London. He says it’s being buried alive down here; that he wants to be among the stir and bustle.
MRS. R. (Cross to h., putting clothes in press.) Ah! that be only his talk. The young uns be all alike. They run arter shadows like the chickens do arter chaff. (Cross l.) Why, I mind when I wur a lass, I used to look in the glass and think I’d be a duchess. But the dook didn’t come, so I just married thee uncle. The young ducks all fancies as they’ll paddle off to the sea, But they live and dies in the old pond arter all. (Crosses to R.)