The Tyne’s in spate; and we must swim for life,
Eh, Ruth? But, you’ll soon get used ...

BELL:
She’s done with me.
She’ll not be sorry to lose me: I fancy, at times,
She felt she’d got more than she’d bargained for--
A wasp, rampaging in her spider’s web.
“Far above rubies” has never been my line,
Though I could wag a tongue with Solomon,
Like the Queen of Sheba herself: I doubt if she
Rose in the night to give meat to her household.
She must have been an ancestor of mine:
For she’d traik any distance for a crack,
The gipsy-hearted ganwife that she was.

MICHAEL:
Wildcats and hunters and the Queen of Sheba--
A royal family, Ruth, you’ve married into!

BELL:
But now I can kick Eliza’s shoes sky-high:
Nay--I must shuffle them quietly off; and lay
The old wife’s shoes decently by the hearth,
As I found them when I came--a slattern stopgap--
Ready for the young wife to step into.
They’ll fit her, as they never fitted me:
For all her youth, they will not gall her heels,
Or give her corns: she’s the true Cinderella:
The clock has struck for her; and the dancing’s done;