_Spread._ _Was_ it mignonette? I think you’re right--it was mignonette. I seized it--pressed it to my trembling lips--placed it next my fluttering heart, and swore that come what might I would never, never part with it!--I wonder what I did with that flower!--And then I took one from my button hole--begged you to take it--you took it, and--ha, ha, ha!--you threw it down carelessly on the table, and thought no more about it, you heartless creature--ha, ha, ha! Oh, I was very angry! I remember it perfectly; it was a camellia. _Jen._ (_half crying aside_). Not a camellia, I think. _Spread._ Yes, a camellia, a large white camellia. _Jen._ I don’t think it was a camellia; I rather think it was a rose. _Spread._ Nonsense, Jane--come, come, you hardly looked at it, miserable little flirt that you were; and you pretend, after thirty years, to stake your recollection of the circumstance against mine? No, no, Jane, take my word for it, it was a camellia. _Jen._ I’m sure it was a rose! _Spread._ No, I’m sure it was a camellia. _Jen._ (_in tears_). Indeed--indeed, it was a rose. (_Produces a withered rose from a pocket-book--he is very much impressed--looks at it and at her, and seems much affected._) _Spread._ Why, Jane, my dear Jane, you don’t mean to say that this is the very flower? _Jen._ That is the very flower! (_Rising._) _Spread._ Strange! You seemed to attach no value to it when I gave it to you, you threw it away as something utterly insignificant; and when I leave, you pick it up, and keep it for thirty years! (_Rising._) My dear Jane, how like a woman! _Jen._ And you seized the flower I gave you--pressed it to your lips, and swore that wherever your good or ill fortune might carry you, you would never part with it; and--and you quite forgot what became of it! My dear Harry, how like a man! _Spread._ I was deceived, my dear Jane--deceived! I had no idea that you attached so much value to my flower. _Jen._ We were both deceived, Henry Spreadbrow. _Spread._ Then is it possible that in treating me as you did, Jane, you were acting a part? _Jen._ We were both acting parts--but the play is over, and there’s an end of it. (_With assumed cheerfulness._) Let us talk of something else. _Spread._ No, no, Jane, the play is _not_ over--we will talk of nothing else--the play is not nearly over. (_Music in orchestra, “John Anderson my Jo.”_) My dear Jane--(_rising and taking her hand_), my very dear Jane--believe me, for I speak from my hardened old heart, so far from the play being over, the serious interest is only just beginning. (_He kisses her hand--they walk towards the house._) DAN’L DRUCE, BLACKSMITH. _A NEW AND ORIGINAL DRAMA_, IN THREE ACTS. _First performed at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, on Monday September 11th, 1876._ An incident in the First Act was suggested by George Eliot’s Novel “Silas Marner.” CHARACTERS.