To travel still--the bride just setting out,
And stepping daintily down the lilylea.
We’ve known the worst.

JUDITH:
But, she can keep the highway,
While I must slink in the ditch, among the nettles.

ELIZA:
I’ve kept the hard road, daughter, forty-year:
The ditch may be easier going, after all:
Nettles don’t sting each other.

JUDITH:
Nay: but I’m not
A ditch-born nettle, but, among the nettles,
Only a woman, naked to every sting:
And there are slugs and slithery toads and paddocks
In the ditch-bottom; and their slimy touch
Is worse to bear than any nettle ...

ELIZA:
Ay--
The pity of it! A maid blooms only once:
And then, that a man should ruin ... But, you’ve your bairn:
And bairns, while we can hold them safe in our arms,
And they still need the breast, make up for much:
For there’s a kind of comfort in their clinging,
Though they only cling till they can stand alone.
But yours is not a son. If I’d only had