Mrs Bridgenorth.  She wont marry, Collins.

Collins.  Bless you, maam, they all say that.  You and me said it,
I’ll lay.  I did, anyhow.

Mrs Bridgenorth.  No:  marriage came natural to me.  I should have thought it did to you too.

Collins [pensive] No, maam:  it didnt come natural.  My wife had to break me into it.  It came natural to her:  she’s what you might call a regular old hen.  Always wants to have her family within sight of her.  Wouldnt go to bed unless she knew they was all safe at home and the door locked, and the lights out.  Always wants her luggage in the carriage with her.  Always goes and makes the engine driver promise her to be careful.  She’s a born wife and mother, maam.  Thats why my children all ran away from home.

Mrs Bridgenorth.  Did you ever feel inclined to run away, Collins?

Collins.  Oh yes, maam, yes:  very often.  But when it came to the point I couldnt bear to hurt her feelings.  Shes a sensitive, affectionate, anxious soul; and she was never brought up to know what freedom is to some people.  You see, family life is all the life she knows:  she’s like a bird born in a cage, that would die if you let it loose in the woods.  When I thought how little it was to a man of my easy temper to put up with her, and how deep it would hurt her to think it was because I didnt care for her, I always put off running away till next time; and so in the end I never ran away at all.  I daresay it was good for me to be took such care of; but it cut me off from all my old friends something dreadful, maam:  especially the women, maam.  She never gave them a chance:  she didnt indeed.  She never understood that married people should take holidays from one another if they are to keep at all fresh.  Not that I ever got tired of her, maam; but my! how I used to get tired of home life sometimes.  I used to catch myself envying my brother George:  I positively did, maam.

Mrs Bridgenorth.  George was a bachelor then, I suppose?

Collins.  Bless you, no, maam.  He married a very fine figure of a woman; but she was that changeable and what you might call susceptible, you would not believe.  She didnt seem to have any control over herself when she fell in love.  She would mope for a couple of days, crying about nothing; and then she would up and say—­no matter who was there to hear her—­“I must go to him, George”; and away she would go from her home and her husband without with-your-leave or by-your-leave.

Mrs Bridgenorth.  But do you mean that she did this more than once?  That she came back?

Collins.  Bless you, maam, she done it five times to my own knowledge; and then George gave up telling us about it, he got so used to it.

Mrs Bridgenorth.  But did he always take her back?