JOHN. I’d like to know where you would find a better one nor master for to give your heart to, mistress? JULIA. May be I have not far to search. JOHN. [_Taking up the basket_.] You’re a rare tricksy maid as ever I did see. Tricksy and tossy too. JULIA. There—that’s enough, John. Suppose you set off home and tell your master he can hang up his meat again in the larder, for all that it concerns me. JOHN. I’ll be blowed if I do say anything of the sort, mistress. I shall get and tell Master William as you be giving a bit of thought to the matter, and that jowls not being to your fancy, ’tis very like as a dish of trotters may prove acceptabler. JULIA. Say what you like, John. Only let me bide quiet in this good forest now. I want to be with my thoughts. JOHN. [_Preparing to go and speaking aloud to himself_.] Her’s a wonderful contrary bird to be sure. And bain’t a shy one neither, what gets timid and flustered and is easily netted. My word, but me and master has a job before us for to catch she. JULIA. I hear you, and ’tis very rudely that you talk. There’s an old saying that I never could see the meaning of before, but now I think ’tis clear, “Like master, like man,” they say. I’ll have none of Master William, and you can tell him so. [JOHN _goes out angrily_. JULIA _sits down again on the bench and begins to sing_. JULIA. [_Singing_.] My gardener stood by And told me to take great care, For in the middle of a red rose-bud There grows a sharp thorn there. [LAURA _comes slowly forward_, _carrying the basket of vegetables on one arm_. _She holds a handkerchief to her face and is crying_. JULIA. Why, Laura, what has made you cry so sadly? LAURA. O, Julia, ’twas a rare red rose as I held in my hand, and a rare cruel thorn that came from it and did prick me. JULIA. And a rare basket of green stuff that you have been getting. LAURA. [_Sinking down on the seat_, _and weeping violently_.] His dear gift to me! JULIA. [_Looking into the basket_.] O a wonderful fine gift, to be sure. Young carrots and spring cabbage. I’ve had a gift offered too—but mine was jowls. LAURA. Jowls. O, and did you not take them? JULIA. No, I sent them back to the giver, with the dry heart which was along with them in the same basket. LAURA. O Julia, how could you be so hard and cruel? JULIA. Come, wouldn’t you have done the same? LAURA. [_Sobbing vehemently_.] That I should not, Julia. JULIA. Perhaps you’ve seen the gentleman then? LAURA. I have. And O, Julia, he is a beautiful gentleman. I never saw one that was his like. JULIA. The rare red rose with its thorn, Laura. LAURA. He did lay the heart of him before me—thinking my name was Julia. JULIA. And did he lay the vegetables too? LAURA. ’Twas all the doing of a great fool, that man of his. JULIA. And you—did you give him what he asked of you—before he knew that your name was not Julia? LAURA. O, I did—that I did. [_A short silence_.