BETTY. A sod too dense for any ploughshare. My wit would break in the turning.
COTTON. His is a strong nature, born to drive and not be driven. There is not such another, nay, not in the whole of Boston.
BETTY. Nay. I have lately heard there be many such!
COTTON. [Testily.] Mayhap thou wouldst name a few.
BETTY. [Musingly, holds up her left hand with fingers outspread.] Aye, that I can. [Checks off one on the little finger.] There be Marcus Ainslee——
COTTON. A goodly youth that hath an eye for books.
BETTY. One eye, sayest thou? Nay, four; and since I am neither morocco bound nor edged with gilt, let us consign him to the shelf wherein he findeth fullest compensation.
COTTON. How now? A man of action, then, should appeal to thy brash tastes. What sayest thou to Jeremiah Wadsworth?
BETTY. Too brash and rash for me [checking off that candidate on the next finger], and I'll have none of him. There's Percy Wayne.
COTTON. Of the bluest blood in Boston.