The speaker is in financial trouble, and the poem opens with a strange, almost darkly funny image of it: being "in the red," they eat as little as possible "of old candle." The pun is neat. Red is the colour of debt, but candle suggests a dim, dwindling light, something burned for warmth or work rather than food. Even the idea of eating it hints at how thin the speaker's resources have become. Meanwhile, prices keep doubling, and the instruction "See how they come to double" feels half weary, half accusing, as if we should look at the proof ourselves.
The second stanza turns inward. Beside the money worry sits a "secret dispute" about who the speaker will marry "and in which ink." That last phrase is the surprise. Marriage becomes something written, perhaps a contract, a poem, or a plan on paper. The mood is anxious but wry, with scarcity pressing on both the body and the imagination.