Mrs. Gardner.  ’Tis true they are from town, but none the worse for that, William.  You have got sadly rude and cumbersome in your ways, or you wouldn’t feel as you do towards a suitable young person.  ’Tis from getting about with John so much, I think.

William.  Now look you here, Mother, I’ve got used to my own ways, and when a man’s got set in his own ways, ’tis best to leave him there.  I’m past the age for marrying, and you ought to know this better than anyone.

Mrs. Gardner.  I know that ’tis a rare lot of foolishness that you do talk, William, seeing as you’re not a year past thirty yet.  But if you can’t be got to wed for love of a maid, perhaps you’ll do so for love of a purse, when ’tis fairly filled.

William.  There’s always been enough for you and me so far, Mother.

Mrs. Gardner.  Ah, but that won’t last for ever.  I’m got an old woman, and I can’t do with the dairy nor the poultry as I was used to do.  And things have not the same prices to them as ’twas a few years gone by.  And last year’s season was the worst that I remember.

William.  So ’twas.  But so long as there’s a roof over our heads and a loaf of bread and a bit of garden for me to work on, where’s the harm, Mother?

Mrs. Gardner.  O you put me out of all patience, William.  Where’s the rent to come from if we go on like this?  And the clothing, and the food?  And John’s wages, and your flower seeds, if it comes to that, for you have got terrible wasteful over the flowers.

William.  I wish you’d take it quieter, Mother.  Look at you bed of musk, ’tis a grand smell that comes up from it all around.

Mrs. Gardner.  No, William.  I’ve no eye for musk, nor nose to smell at it either till you’ve spoken the word that I require.

William.  Best let things bide as they are, Mother.

Mrs. Gardner.  I’ll leave you no rest till you do as I wish, William.  I’m got an old woman, and ’tis hard I should be denied in aught that I’ve set my heart upon.

William.  Please to set it upon something different, Mother, for I’m not a marrying man, and John he’ll tell you the same thing.

Mrs. Gardner.  John!  I’m sick of the very name of him.  I can’t think how ’tis that you can lower yourself by being so close with a common farm hand, William.

William.  Ah, ’twould be a rare hard matter to find the equal to John, Mother.  ’Tis of gold all through, and every bit of him, that he is made.  You don’t see many like John these days, that’s the truth.

Mrs. Gardner.  Well, then, John, won’t be here much longer, for we shan’t have anything to give him if things go on like this.

William.  I’d wed forty wives sooner than lose John—­and that I would.