“Well! I counsels him to speak to Em’ly. He’s big enough, but he’s bashfuller than a little ’un, and he don’t like. So I speak. ‘What! Him? ’ says Em’ly. ‘ Him that I’ve know’d so intimate so many years, and like so much. Oh, Uncle! I never can have him . He’s such a good fellow!’ I gives her a kiss, and I says no more to her than, ‘My dear, you’re right to speak out, you’re to choose for yourself, you’re as free as a little bird.’ Then I aways to him, and I says, ‘I wish it could have been so, but it can’t. But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is, Be as you was with her, like a man.’ He says to me, a-shaking of my hand, ‘I will!’ he says. And he was⁠—honourable and manful⁠—for two year going on, and we was just the same at home here as afore.”