Miles. Take my word for it, George, Ox Lease will have to smarten up a bit for this young lady. I know the circles she has been moving in, and ’tis to the best of everything that she has been used.
George. [Rising.] That’s what mistress do say. And that’s why I be sent along down to Brook with haymaking going on and all. Spring chicken with sparrow grass be the right feeding for such as they. So mistress do count.
Miles. Stop a moment, George. You have perhaps heard the letters from Miss Clara discussed in the family from time to time.
George. Miss Clara did never send but two letters home in all the while she was gone. The first of them did tell as how th’ old lady was dead and had left all of her fortune to Miss Clara. And the second was to say as how her was coming back to the farm this morning.
Luke. And hark you here, George, was naught mentioned about Miss Clara’s fine suitors in neither of them letters?
George. That I cannot say, Master Jenner.
Miles. Nothing of their swarming thick around her up in London, George?
George. They may be swarming by the thousand for aught as I do know. They smells gold as honey bees do smell the blossom. Us’ll have a good few of them a-buzzing round the farm afore we’re many hours older, so I counts.
Miles. Well, George, that’ll liven up the place a bit, I don’t doubt.
Luke. ’Tis a bit of quiet and no livening as Ox Lease do want. Isn’t that so, George, my lad?