Oh! there's no need to explain; I knows everything about it, and so does every babe in the village by now, not to mention the old women.

Master Godfrey, you take my advice, the next time you go a-courtin' shut the door behind you, which I always made a point o' doing when I was young.
Being passing that way, I seed parson peeping in, and knowing you was there, guessed why.

Truth is I came to warn you after he'd gone up to the Hall, but seein' how you was engaged, thought it a pity to interrupt, though now I wish I had." Godfrey groaned; there was nothing to say.
"Well, all the soot's in the cooking-pot now, so to speak," proceeded Tom blandly, "and we're downright sad about it, we are, for as my missus was saying, you'd make a pretty pair.

But, Lord, Master Godfrey, don't you take it too much to heart, for she's an upright young lady, she is, and steadfast.

Or if she ain't, there's plenty of others; also one day follows another, as the saying goes, and the worst of old varmints don't live for ever.