_Olive._ Oh, Ann, you are forgetting your cape. Here, mother, you carry it for her. Good-night, sweetheart. _Ann._ I want no company, Goodwife Corey. [Martha _takes her laughingly by the arm and leads her out._ _Paul._ It is a fine night out. _Olive._ So I have heard. _Paul._ You make a jest of me, Mistress Olive. Know you not when a man is of a sudden left alone with a fair maid, he needs to try his speech like a player his fiddle, to see if it be in good tune for her ears; and what better way than to sound over and over again the praise of the fine weather? What ailed Ann that she seemed so strangely, Olive? _Olive._ I know not. I think she had been overwrought by coming alone through the woods. _Paul._ She seemed ill at ease. Why spin you so steadily, Olive? _Olive._ I must finish my stint. _Paul._ Who set you a stint as if you were a child? _Olive._ Mine own conscience, to which I will ever be a child. _Paul._ Cease spinning, sweetheart. _Olive._ Nay. _Paul._ Come over here on the settle, there is something I would tell thee. _Olive._ Tell it, then. I can hear a distance of three feet or so. _Paul._ I know thou canst, but come. _Olive._ Nay, I will not. This is no courting night. I cannot idle every night in the week. _Paul._ Thou wouldst make a new commandment. A maid shall spin flax every night in the week save the Sabbath, when she shall lay aside her work and be courted. There be young men here in Salem Village, though you may credit it not, Olive, who visit their maids twice every week, and have the fire in the fore room kindled. _Olive._ My mother thinks it not well that I should sit up oftener than once a week, nor do I; but be not vexed by it, Paul. _Paul._ I love thee better for it, sweetheart. _Olive._ My stint is done. _Paul._ Then come. (_She obeys._) Now for the news. This morning I bought of Goodman Nourse his nine-acre lot for a homestead. What thinkest thou of that? _Olive._ It is a pleasant spot. _Paul._ 'Tis not far from here, and thou wilt be near thy mother. _Olive._ Was it not too costly? _Paul._ I had saved enough to pay for it, and in another year's time, and I have the help of God in it, I shall have saved enough for our house. What thinkest thou of a gambrel-roof and a lean-to, two square front rooms, both fire-rooms, and a living-room? And peonies and hollyhocks in the front yard, and two popple-trees, one on each side of the gate? _Olive._ We shall need not a lean-to, Paul, and one fire-room will serve us well; but I will have laylocks and red and white roses as well as peonies and hollyhocks in the front yard, and some mint under the windows to make the house smell sweet; and I like well the popple-trees at the gate. _Paul._ The house shall be built of fairly seasoned yellow pine wood, with a summer tree in every room, and fine panel-work in the doors and around the chimbleys. _Olive._ Nay, Paul, not too fine panel-work; 'twill cost too high.