I’ve tholed them, all twice-borrowed, from dad and granddad,
And rank, when I came to Krindlesyke, to find
Life, the same jobs and same jests over and over.

EZRA:
A notion, that, to hatch, full-fledged and crowing!
You must have brooded, old clocker.

ELIZA:
True enough,
Marriage means little more than a new gown
To some: but Phœbe’s not a fancicle tauntril,
With fingers itching to hansel new-fangled flerds.
Why she’d wed ...

EZRA:
Tuts! Girls take their chance. And you’d
Conceit enough of Jim, at one time--proud
As a pipit that’s hatched a cuckoo: and if the gowk
Were half as handsome as I--you ken, yourself,
You needed no coaxing: I wasted little breath
Whistling to heel: you came at the first “Isca!”

ELIZA:
Who kens what a lass runs away from, crazed to quit
Home, at all hazards, little realizing
It’s life, itself, she’s trying to escape;
And plodging deeper.

EZRA: