Page:Eliot - Adam Bede, vol. II, 1859.djvu/39

Rh there's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots."

"Well, Chowne's been wantin' to buy Sally, so we can get rid of her if thee lik'st," said Mr 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 short-horns.

"Ay, them as choose a soft for a wife may 's well buy up the short-horns, for if you get your head stuck in a bog you'reyour [sic] 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."

"Ay, 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 over pretty. 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'