[SUSAN _comes up and stands quietly listening_. _She is bare foot and her skirt is ragged_, _she wears a shawl over her shoulders and her hair is rough and untidy_. _On her arm she carries a basket containing a few vegetables and other marketings_. MARION. And when he do pitch upon the one, ’tis her as he will wed. ROSE. ’Twill be a thing to sharpen the claws of th’ old countess worse nor ever—that marriage. MARION. Ah, I reckon as her be mortal angered with all the giddle-gaddle this business have set up among the folk. ROSE. [_Regretfully_.] I’ve never danced among the trees myself. MARION. [_Sadly_.] Nor I, neither, Rose. ROSE. I’d dearly like to be a countess, Marion. MARION. His lordship might think I was the maid. I’m spry upon my feet you know. [SUSAN _comes still nearer_. MARION. [_Turning to her and speaking rudely_.] Well, Princess Rags, ’tisn’t likely as ’twas you a-dancing one of your Morris dances in the wood that day! ROSE. [_Mockingly_.] ’Tisn’t likely as his lordship would set his thoughts on a wench what could caper about like a Morris man upon the high road. So there. SUSAN. [_Indifferently_.] I never danced upon the high road, I dances only where ’tis dark with gloom and no eyes upon me. No mortal eyes. MARION. [_Impudently_.] Get along with you, Princess Royal. Go off to th’ old gipsy Gran’ma yonder. We don’t want the likes of you along of us. ROSE. Go off and dance to your own animals, Miss Goatherd. All of us be a-going to practise our steps against May Day. Come along girls. [_She signs to the other girls who all draw near and arrange themselves for a Country Dance_. SUSAN _goes slowly towards her_ GRANDMOTHER _and sits on the ground by her side_, _looking sadly and wistfully at the dancers_. _At the end of the dance_, _the girls pick up their baskets and go off in different directions across the green_. SUSAN _and her_ GRANDMOTHER _remain in their places_. _The gipsy continues to smoke and_ SUSAN _absently turns over the things in her basket_. SUSAN. They mock me in the name they have fixed to me—Princess Royal. GRANDMOTHER. Let them mock. I’ll bring the words back to them like scorpions upon their tongues. [_There is a little silence and then_ SUSAN _begins to sing as though to herself_. SUSAN. [_Singing_.] “As I walked out one May morning, So early in the Spring; I placed my back against the old garden gate, And I heard my true love sing.” {1} GRANDMOTHER. [_At the end of the singing_.] It might be the blackcap a-warbling all among of the branches. So it might. SUSAN. Ah, ’twas I that was a-dancing in the shade of the woods that day. GRANDMOTHER. He’ll never look on the likes of you—that’s sure enough, my little wench. SUSAN. I wish he was a goat-herd like myself—O that I do. GRANDMOTHER. Then there wouldn’t be no use in your wedding yourself with him as I can see. SUSAN. ’Tis himself, not his riches that I want.