May. [Mockingly.] “It’s a good thought, bain’t it, Annie, that to-morrow this time there won’t be no need for us to part?” And in the days when I was a young woman and all the bloom of I upon me, ’twouldn’t have been once as he’d have looked on such as her.

Vashti.  And ’tis full of bloom and rare fine and handsome as you appear now, May, leastways to my old eyes.  And when you goes up to Steve and shows yourself, I take it the door’ll be shut in the face of the mealy one what they’ve all been so took up with this long while.  I count that ’twill and no mistake.  So ’tis.

May. [Fiercely.] Hark you here, Mother, and ’tis to be wed to-morrow as they be!  Wed—­the both of them, the both of them!  And me in my flesh, and wife to Steve!  “Can I cover you up with a bit of old sack or summat?” Old sack!  When there be a coverlet with feathers to it stretched over where he do lie upstairs.  “I’ll let you out when ’tis morning.”  Ah, you will, will you, Steve Browning?  Us’ll see how ’twill be when ’tis morning—­Us’ll see, just won’t us then!

Vashti.  Ah, ‘tis in her place as th’ old woman will be set come morning—­And that her’ll be—­I count as ’tis long enough as her have mistressed it over the house. [Shaking her fist towards the ceiling.] You old she fox, you may gather the pads of you in under of you now, and crouch you down t’other side of the fire like any other old woman of your years—­for my May’s comed back, and her’ll show you your place what you’ve not known where ’twas in all the days of your old wicked life.  So ’tis.

May.  Her han’t changed a hair of her, th’ old stoat!  Soon as I heard the note of she, the heat bubbled up in I, though ’twas chattering in the cold as I had been but a moment afore.  “One of they dirty roadsters—­I’ll learn you to come disturbing of a wedding party, I will.” [Shaking her fist towards the ceiling.] No, you bain’t changed, you hardened old sinner—­but the words out of the cruel old mouth of you don’t hurt I any more—­not they.  I be passed out of the power of such as you.  I knowed I’d have to face you when I comed back, but I knowed, too, as I should brush you out of the way of me, like I would brush one of they old maid flies.

Vashti.  Ah, and so I telled she many a time.  “You bide till my May be comed home,” I says.  “She be already put safe to bed and ’tis in the churchyard where her do take her rest,” says she.  Ah, what a great liar that is, th’ old woman what’s Steve’s mother!  And the lies they do grow right out of she tall as rushes, and the wind do blow they to the left and to the right.  So ’tis.

May.  Ah, she han’t any more power for to hurt I in the ugly old body of her.  I be got beyond she.  There be but one or two things as can touch I now—­But one or two.  And I be struck to the heart, I be, struck to the heart.

[She bends forwards, rocking herself to and fro and weeping.