STEVE. Well, Mother—what do you say? ’Twouldn’t hurt for she to look in about half an hour, and Annie and me we could bring her back betimes. DORRY. O, Dad, I wants to go if ’twas only for a minute. STEVE. There, there—you shall go and we’ll say no more about it. JANE. I never knowed you give in to her so foolish like this afore, Steve. STEVE. Well, Mother, ’tain’t every day as a man’s married, that ’tain’t. VASHTI. And so you’re to be wed come to-morrow, Steve? They tells me as you’re to be wed. STEVE. That’s right enough, Gran. VASHTI. [_Rising_.] And there be no resting in me to-day, Steve. There be summat as burns quick in the bones of my body and that will not let me bide.—And ’tis steps as I hears on the roadside and in the fields—and ’tis a bad taste as is in my victuals, and I must be moving, and peering about, and a-taking cold water into my mouth for to do away with the thing on my tongue, which is as the smell of death—So ’tis. JANE. Now she’s off again! Come, sit you down, Vashti Reed, and I’ll give you summat as’ll very likely warm you and keep you quiet in your chair a while. Just you wait till I gets the water boiling. [_She begins to stir up the fire and sets a kettle on it_. DORRY. [_From the window_.] Here’s Miss Sims coming up the path, and Rosie too. O, they’re wrapped up all over ’cause ’tis snowing. I’ll open, I’ll open. [_She runs to the door and unlatches it_. ANNIE _and_ ROSE SIMS _come in_, _shaking the snow from them and unbuttoning their cloaks_, _which_ STEVE _takes from them and hangs on the door_. ACT II.—Scene 2. ANNIE. [_As_ STEVE _takes off her cloak_.] ’Tis going to be a dreadful night. The snow’s coming down something cruel. ROSE. There won’t be many to the dance if it keeps on like this, will there? STEVE. Get you to the fire, both of you, and warm yourselves before we sets out again. DORRY. Miss Sims, Miss Sims—Miss Rosie—I’m going along with you to the dance, Dad says as I may. JANE. Bless the child! However her has worked upon her father, and he so strict, I don’t know. ANNIE. Well, you be got up fine and grand, Dorry—I shouldn’t hardly know ’twas you. [_Turning to_ VASHTI REED.] Good evening, Mrs. Reed, my eyes was very near blinded when I first got in out of the dark, and I didn’t see as you was there. ROSE. Good evening, Mrs. Reed, and how be you keeping this cold weather? VASHTI. [_Peering into their faces as they stand near her_.] What be you a-telling I of? ANNIE. We was saying, how be you in this sharp weather, Mrs. Reed? VASHTI. How be I? ROSE. Yes, Mrs. Reed, how be you a-keeping now ’tis come over such nasty weather? VASHTI. And how should an old woman be, and her one child out in the rain and all the wind, and driv’ there too by them as was laid like snakes in the grass about the feet of she, ready for to overthrow she when her should have gotten to a time of weakness.