JOHN. Out, and a taking of the air in the wood, be they? Well, bless my soul, but ’tis a rare caddling business what master’s put upon I. ’Tis worse nor any job he have set me to in all the years I’ve been along of him, so ’tis. But I’m the one to bring it off slick and straight, and, bless me, if I won’t take and hide myself by yon great bush till I see the wenches a-coming up. That’ll give me time to have a quiet look at the both and pick out she what master’s going a-courting of. [JOHN _puts himself behind some thick bushes as_ JULIA _and_ LAURA _come forward_. JULIA _is very simply dressed_. _Her head is bare_, _and she is carrying her white cotton sunbonnet_. LAURA _wears finer clothes and her bonnet is tied by bright ribbons of cherry colour_. LAURA. [_Stopping by the bench_.] We’ll sit down—’Tis a warm day, and I’ve had enough of walking. [_She sinks down on the seat_. JULIA. [_Looking all round her_.] ’Tis beautiful and quiet here. O this is ever so much better than the farm. LAURA. The farm! What’s wrong with that, I should like to know? JULIA. Everything. ’Tis more like a prison than a home to me. Within the house there’s always work crying out to be done—and outside I believe ’tis worse—work—nothing else speaking to me. LAURA. You’re a sad ungrateful girl. Why, there’s many would give their eyes to change with you. JULIA. But out here ’tis all peace, and freedom. There’s naught calling out to be done. The flowers grow as they like, and the breezes move them this way, and that. The ground is thick with leaves and blossoms and no one has got to sweep it, and the hard things with great noises to them, like pails and churns, are far away and clean forgot. LAURA. ’Tisn’t much use as you’ll be on the farm. JULIA. I wish I’d never come nigh to it. I was happier far before. LAURA. ’Tis a grand life. You’ll see it as I do one of these days. JULIA. No, that I shall not. Every day that I wake and hear the cattle lowing beneath my window I turn over on my pillow, and ’tis a heart of lead that turns with me. The smell of the wild flowers in the fields calls me, but ’tis to the dairy I must go, to work. And at noonday, when the shade of the woodland makes me thirsty for its coolness, ’tis the kitchen I must be in—or picking green stuff for the market. And so on till night, when the limbs of me can do no more and the spirit in me is like a bird with the wing of it broken. LAURA. You’ll harden to it all by winter time right enough. JULIA. O I’ll never harden to it. ’Tis not that way I am made. Some girls can set themselves down with four walls round them, and do their task nor ask for anything beyond, but ’tis not so with me. LAURA. How is it then with you? JULIA. [_Pointing_.] There—see that blue thing yonder flying from one blossom to another. That’s how ’tis with me. Shut me up close in one place, I perish. Let me go free, and I can fly and live.