Cranford

“And please, ma’am, he wants to marry me off-hand. And please, ma’am, we want to take a lodger— just one quiet lodger, to make our two ends meet; and we’d take any house conformable; and, oh dear Miss Matty, if I may be so bold, would you have any objections to lodging with us? Jem wants it as much as I do.” [To Jem ]—“You great oaf! why can’t you back me!— But he does want it all the same, very bad— don’t you, Jem?— only, you see, he’s dazed at being called on to speak before quality.” [Picture: Please, ma’am, he wants to marry me off-hand] “It’s not that,” broke in Jem. “It’s that you’ve taken me all on a sudden, and I didn’t think for to get married so soon— and such quick words does flabbergast a man. It’s not that I’m against it, ma’am” (addressing Miss Matty), “only Martha has such quick ways with her when once she takes a thing into her head; and marriage, ma’am— marriage nails a man, as one may say. I dare say I shan’t mind it after it’s once over.” “Please, ma’am,” said Martha— who had plucked at his sleeve, and nudged him with her elbow, and otherwise tried to interrupt him all the time he had been speaking— “don’t mind him, he’ll come to; ’twas only last night he was an-axing me, and an-axing me, and all the more because I said I could not think of it for years to come, and now he’s only taken aback with the suddenness of the joy; but you know, Jem, you are just as full as me about wanting a lodger.” (Another great nudge.)