Rose. [Pausing.] What’s this, Jeremy?

Jeremy.  The servants be runned away same as t’others—­that’s all, mistress.

Rose.  Run away?

Jeremy.  So I do reckon.  Bain’t anywhere about the place.

Rose. [Flinging herself down on a chair by the table, in front of the bunch of forget-me-nots.] Let them be found.  Let them be brought back at once.

Kitty.  For my part I’m glad they’ve gone off.  The girl was a wild, bad thing.  I saw how she went on with Robert.

Rose. [Brokenly to Jeremy.] You found them.  Bring them back, Jerry.

Kitty.  No—­wait till you and Robert are made man and wife, Rose.  Then ’twon’t matter quite so much.

Rose.  I’ll never wed me to Robert, I’ll only wed me to him who gathered these blue flowers here.

Kitty.  Good heavens, Rose, ’twas the man William.

[Kitty looks in consternation from rose to the cousins and then to Jeremy, who remains impassive and uninterested, sucking a straw.  Rose clasps her hands round the forget-me-nots and sits gazing at them, desolately unhappy.  Robert enters.  He is very grandly dressed for the wedding, but as he comes into the room he sees ISABEL’S cotton bonnet on the floor.  He stoops, picks it up and laying it reverently on the table, sinks into a chair opposite rose and raising one of its ribbons, kisses this with passion.

Robert.  There—­I’d not change this for a thousand sacks of gold—­I swear I’d not.

Kitty.  Now Robert—­get up, the two of you.  Are you bewitched or sommat—­O Jerry, stir them, can’t you.

Liz.  Robert, ’tisn’t hardly suitable—­with the young miss so sweetly pretty in her white gown.

Jane.  And wedding veil and all.  And sister and me hooked up into our new sprigs, ready for the ceremony.

Jeremy. [Looking at them with cold contempt.] Let them bide.  The mush’ll swim out of they same as ’twill swim off the cider vat.  Just let the young fools bide.

Kitty.  O this’ll never do.  Jerry forgetting of his manners and all. [Calling at the garden door.] John, John, come you here quickly, there’s shocking goings on. [John, in best clothes comes in.

John.  What’s the rattle now, Kitty?  I declare I might be turning round on top of my own mill wheel such times as these.

Kitty.  Rose says she won’t wed Robert, and Robert’s gone off his head all along of that naughty servant maid.

[John stands contemplating rose and Robert.  Rose seems lost to the outside world and is gazing with tears at her forget-me-nots, whilst Robert, in sullen gloom, keeps his eyes fixed on the sun-bonnet.

John.  Come, Rose, ’tis time you commenced to act a bit different. [Rose does not answer.