As for other matters at Woodburn Grange, they were by no means dull. The wedding of Letty with Thorsby was to take place in May, and Thorsby was there every few days overflowing with fun and animal spirits. Since Betty Trapps knew that this marriage was inevitable, though she continued privately to shake her head over it, she _endeavoured_ to be more respectful to Thorsby, out of respect to Letty; but Thorsby’s ebullient temperament sometimes tried her very hard, especially when he indulged himself with making merry over the Methodists, which he was very apt to do when Betty was waiting at table. Betty said “some people were hetter and some were heeler (that is, irritable or calm in disposition). For her part, she did not pretend to be ower heeler—tread on a worm, and it would turn—and if people would pinch her, she was pretty sure, she said, to cry out.” One day Thorsby was very merry over a master manufacturer in Castleborough, who was a great leader amongst the Methodists, and kept a horse for the use of the preachers who went into the country round, and rather irreverently called it God’s horse. Betty defended the title, and thought the profanity was in laughing at the manufacturer who kept it. The next time that Thorsby was obliged by the weather to stay all night at the Grange, he found that Betty had made him an “apple-pie bed;” that is, she had turned up the upper sheet to the pillow, so that, on getting into bed, he found himself stopped half-way. This, however, was nothing to the expression of her indignation conveyed to him by a frog, a bit of furze, or even a wasp, being put into his bed. Thorsby, on another occasion, excited Betty’s wrath by asserting that he thought he could preach better than a favourite preacher of Betty’s. “Preach, i’ faith!” said Betty, as she shifted Thorsby plate—“Ay, may be, as well as old Parson Markham, of Rockville, who buzzes like a dumbledore[1] in a pitcher.” The conversation turning on somebody who had been unfortunate, Thorsby remarked that people ought not to expect to get on who did not exert themselves. “Oh, beleddy”—a great word of Betty’s, meaning, by-lady, from the old phrase, “By our lady”—Betty remarked, “I always see folks run to help a lazy duck that lies on its back and quackles, while stirring ducks may take care of themselves as they can.”