Trust a wench for kenning.
I’ve to meet the wife who’d be a maid again:
Once in the fire, no wife, though she may crackle
On the live coals, leaps back to the frying-pan.
It’s against nature.

ELIZA:
Maybe: and yet, somehow,
Phœbe seemed different.

EZRA:
I’ve found little difference
Betwixt one gimmer and another gimmer,
When the ram’s among them. But, where does she hail from?

ELIZA:
Allendale way. Jim met her at Martinmas fair.

EZRA:
We met ...

ELIZA:
Ay, fairs have much to answer for.

EZRA:
I thought ’twas Judith Ellershaw.

ELIZA:
God forbid
’Twas Judith I’d to share with: though Jim fancied