Poyser, secretly proud of his wife's superior
power of putting two and two together; indeed, on recent market-days
he had more than once boasted of her discernment in this very matter of
shorthorns. "Aye, them as choose a soft for a wife may's well buy up
the shorthorns, for if you get your head stuck in a bog, your legs may's
well go after it. Eh! Talk o' legs, there's legs for you," Mrs. Poyser
continued, as Totty, who had been set down now the road was dry, toddled
on in front of her father and mother. "There's shapes! An' she's got
such a long foot, she'll be her father's own child."
"Aye, she'll be welly such a one as Hetty i' ten years' time, on'y she's
got THY coloured eyes. I niver remember a blue eye i' my family; my
mother had eyes as black as sloes, just like Hetty's."
"The child 'ull be none the worse for having summat as isn't like Hetty.
An' I'm none for having her so overpretty. Though for the matter o'
that, there's people wi' light hair an' blue eyes as pretty as them wi'
black. If Dinah had got a bit o' colour in her cheeks, an' didn't stick
that Methodist cap on her head, enough to frighten the cows, folks 'ud
think her as pretty as Hetty."
"Nay, nay," said Mr. Poyser, with rather a contemptuous emphasis, "thee
dostna know the pints of a woman.
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