Skiffins made the tea.

The mellow fervency of John's "With all my worldly goods I thee endow"-- must be taken in a Pickwickian and Cupidian sense.
Reason and experience sustain him in the belief that a tyro should learn a business before being put in charge of important interests.
Mary is a tyro whose abilities and discretion he must test before--in the words of the old song--he "gives her the key of his chest, To get the gold at her request." Most women take to married and home-life easily, because naturally.
The shadow of the roof-tree, the wholesome restraint of household routine and the peaceful monotony of household tasks accord well with preconceived ideas and early education.

John's liking for domesticity is usually an acquired taste, like that for olives and caviare, and to gain aptitude for the duties it involves, requires patience.

He needs filing down and chinking, and rounding off, and sand-papering before he fits decorously into the chimney-corner.

And when there, he sometimes does not "season straight." He was hewed across the grain, or the native grain ran awry, or there is a knot in the wood.
"Why were those newel posts oiled before they were set up ?" I asked of a carpenter.
"T' keep'em from checkin', to be sure." "Checking ?" "Yes, ma'am.