‘She is: and a winnen one. Look at the husbands she’ve had--God bless her!’ ‘I wonder you could stand third in that list, Clerk Crickett,’ said Mr. Springrove. ‘Well, ‘t has been a power o’ marvel to myself oftentimes. Yes, matrimony do begin wi’ “Dearly beloved,” and ends wi’ “Amazement,” as the prayer-book says. But what could I do, naibour Springrove? ‘Twas ordained to be. Well do I call to mind what your poor lady said to me when I had just married. “Ah, Mr. Crickett,” says she, “your wife will soon settle you as she did her other two: here’s a glass o’ rum, for I shan’t see your poor face this time next year.” I swallered the rum, called again next year, and said, “Mrs. Springrove, you gave me a glass o’ rum last year because I was going to die--here I be alive still, you see.” “Well said, clerk! Here’s two glasses for you now, then,” says she. “Thank you, mem,” I said, and swallered the rum. Well, dang my old sides, next year I thought I’d call again and get three. And call I did. But she wouldn’t give me a drop o’ the commonest. “No, clerk,” says she, “you be too tough for a woman’s pity.”... Ah, poor soul, ‘twas true enough! Here be I, that was expected to die, alive and hard as a nail, you see, and there’s she moulderen in her grave.’ ‘I used to think ‘twas your wife’s fate not to have a liven husband when I zid ‘em die off so,’ said Gad. ‘Fate? Bless thy simplicity, so ‘twas her fate; but she struggled to have one, and would, and did. Fate’s nothen beside a woman’s schemen!’ ‘I suppose, then, that Fate is a He, like us, and the Lord, and the rest o’ ‘em up above there,’ said Gad, lifting his eyes to the sky. ‘Hullo! Here’s the young woman comen that we were a-talken about by-now,’ said a grinder, suddenly interrupting. ‘She’s comen up here, as I be alive!’ The two grinders stood and regarded Cytherea as if she had been a ship tacking into a harbour, nearly stopping the mill in their new interest. ‘Stylish accoutrements about the head and shoulders, to my thinken,’ said the clerk. ‘Sheenen curls, and plenty o’ em.’ ‘If there’s one kind of pride more excusable than another in a young woman, ‘tis being proud of her hair,’ said Mr. Springrove. ‘Dear man!--the pride there is only a small piece o’ the whole. I warrant now, though she can show such a figure, she ha’n’t a stick o’ furniture to call her own.’ ‘Come, Clerk Crickett, let the maid be a maid while she is a maid,’ said Farmer Springrove chivalrously. ‘O,’ replied the servant of the Church; ‘I’ve nothen to say against it--O no: ‘“The chimney-sweeper’s daughter Sue As I have heard declare, O, Although she’s neither sock nor shoe Will curl and deck her hair, O.”’