Steve.  Well, Rosie.

Rose.  Haven’t you got nothing as you can say, Steve?

Steve.  What be I to say, Rose?

Rose.  Well, something of how you thinks she looks, of course.

Steve.  O, ’tis all right, I suppose.

Rose.  All right!  And is that about all as you’ve seen?  Why, bless you, Steve, where have you gone and hid your tongue I should like to know!

Steve.  Well, there bain’t nothing wrong, be there?

Rose.  Of course there isn’t.  But I never did see such a man as you, Steve.  Why, I don’t believe as you’d know whether Annie haves a pair of eyes to her face or not, nor if they be the same colour one to t’other.

Steve.  I sees enough for me.  I sees as Annie is the girl as I’ve picked out of the whole world.  And I know that to-morrow she and I is to be made man and wife.  And that be pretty nigh enough for me this night, I reckon.

Dorry.  O, Miss Sims, do you hear what Dad is saying?  O, I wonder what I should feel if ’twas me that was going to be married!

Rose.  You get and ask Annie how ’tis with her, Dorry.  I could tell a fine tale of how as she do lie tossing half the nights, and of the candles that’s burned right down to the very end of them, I could.

Annie.  Don’t you go for to listen to her, Dorry, nor Steve, neither.  She’s that flustered herself about the dance to-night that she scarce do know what she’s a-saying of.  But suppose you was just to ask her what she’s got wrapped so careful in that there paper in her hand.

Dorry.  O, Rosie, whatever is it?

Steve.  What’s that you’ve got hold on now, Rosie?

Annie.  Come, show them all, Rose.

[Rose slowly unfolds the paper and shows them all a hothouse carnation and a fern.

Rose.  There ’tis, then.

Dorry.  O my, Rosie—­isn’t it beautiful.  Be you going to wear it to the dance?

Rose.  No, Dorry, ’tisn’t for me.

Annie.  You just ask her for whom it is, then, Dorry.

Dorry.  O, who is it for, Rosie—­who is it for?

Rose.  No—­I’m not a-going to tell none of you.

[She wraps it up carefully again.

Annie.  I’ll tell then, for you.

Rose.  No, you shan’t, Annie—­that you shan’t!

Annie.  That I shall, then—­come you here, Dorry—­I’ll whisper it to your ear. [Whispers it to Dorry.

Dorry. [Excitedly.] I know who ’tis—­I know—­’tis for Mr. Davis—­ for Mr. Davis!  Think of that, Dad—­the flower ’tis for George Davis.

Rose.  O, Annie, how you could!

Steve.  George —

Vashti. [Suddenly roused.] Who named George?  There was but one man as was called by that name—­and he courted my girl till her was faint and weary of the sound and shape of he, and so on a day when he was come —