May. [Bitterly.] I’m thinking ’tis time!

Vashti.  ’Tis the lies of they be growed big as wheat stalks and the hardness of their hearts be worse nor death.  But ’tis to judgment as they shall be led, now you be comed home, May, and the hand of God shall catch they when they do crawl like adders upon the earth.  “Ah, and do you mind how ’twas you served old Vashti, what never did harm to no one all the life of her,” I shall call out to th’ old woman in that hour when her shall be burning in the lake.  And her shall beg for a drop of water to lay upon the withered tongue of she, and it shall be denied, for other hands nor ours be at work, and ’tis the wicked as shall perish—­yes, so ’tis.

May. [Who has been bending forward, looking steadily into the fire.] Stop that, Mother, I wants to get at my thoughts.

Vashti.  Be you a-going to set on I, too, May, now that you be comed home.  ’Tis poor work for an old woman like I.

May. [As though to herself.] And as I was laid beneath the hedge—­ “’Tis cold as my limbs is, now,” I says, “but I shall be warm this night.”  And the pangs what was in the body of me did fairly quail I--"’Tis my fill of victuals as I shall soon put within,” thinks I. And they was laid a bit.  The bleakness of the tempest fell on I, but “I shan’t feel lonesome no longer than this hour,” I telled me.  For to my thinking, Steve, he was waiting all the time till I should be comed back.  And Dorry, too.  There ’tis. [A long silence.

May.  I’d have been content to bide with the door shut—­so long as it was shut with they two and me inside the room—­th’ old woman—­well, I count I shouldn’t have took many thought for she—­she could have bided in her place if she’d had a mind—­I’d have set me down, when once my clothes was decent and clean, and put my hands to the work and made a tidy wife for Steve, as good nor better than that there dressed-up thing out yonder—­And bred Dorry up the right way, too, I would.  But ’tis done with now, so ’tis.

Vashti. [As though to herself.] And when ’tis morning and she gets her down—­“There, ’tis my girl as is mistress here, I’ll say to her—­ and ’tis my girl as shall sit cup end of the table—­and you get you to the fire corner and bide there, like the poor old woman as you be, spite that you do slip about so spry on the wicked old legs of you.”

May.  And I could set she back in her place, too, that tricked-up, flashy thing over the way.  I’ve but to climb the stairs and clap my hand on Steve—­“Get you from your dreams,” I have got but to say, “the woman what’s yourn be comed home.  Her have tasted the cup of death, very near, and her have been a-thirst and an hungered.  But her has carried summat for you in her heart all the way what you wouldn’t find in the heart of t’other, no, not if you was to cut it open and search it through.”  And the right belongs to I to shut the door on t’other hussey, holding Steve to I till death divides we.