LADY MILLICENT. And feed you with poultry and cream and sweetmeats. SUSAN. I want naught but my crust of bread. LADY MILLICENT. I’ll fill your hands with gold pieces. GRANDMOTHER. Do you hear that, Sue? SUSAN. [_Doggedly_.] I hear her well enough, Gran. LADY MILLICENT. If you’ll teach me your dance against May Day. Then, I’ll clothe myself much after your fashion and dance upon the green with the rest. SUSAN. I’ll not learn you my dance. Not for all the gold in the world. You shan’t go and take the only thing I have away from me. LADY MILLICENT. [_Angrily_.] Neither shall a little gipsy wretch like you take my love from me. We were as good as promised to each other at our christening. ALICE. Don’t put yourself out for the baggage, madam. His lordship would never look on her. GRANDMOTHER. Gold, did you say, mistress? LADY MILLICENT. Gold? O yes—an apron full of gold, and silver too. GRANDMOTHER. Do you hear that, Susan? SUSAN. [_Doggedly_.] I’ll not do it for a King’s ransom. GRANDMOTHER. You will. You’ll do it for the sake of poor old Gran, what’s been father and mother to you—and what’s gone hungered and thirsty so that you might have bread and drink. SUSAN. [_Distractedly_.] O I can never give him up. GRANDMOTHER. He’ll never be yourn to give—Dance till your legs is off and he’ll have naught to say to a gipsy brat when ’tis all finished. ALICE. Whilst my lady belongs to his lordship’s own class, ’tis but suitable as she should be the one to wed with him—knowing the foreign tongues and all, and playing so sweetly on her instruments. There’s a lady anyone would be proud to take before the Court in London. [SUSAN _turns away with a movement of despair_. _The_ GRANDMOTHER _begins to smoke again_. LADY MILLICENT _fans herself and_ ALICE _arranges her own shawl_. GRANDMOTHER. I could do with a little pig up at our place if I’d the silver to take into the market for to buy him with. [_A silence_. GRANDMOTHER. And I could do with a pair of good shoes to my poor old feet come winter time when ’tis snowing. [_Another silence_. GRANDMOTHER. And ’twould be good not to go to bed with the pain of hunger within my lean old body—so ’twould. [SUSAN _turns round suddenly_. SUSAN. I’ll do it, Gran. I’ll do it for your sake. ’Tis very likely true what you do say, all of you. I’d but dance my feet off for naught. When he came to look into my gipsy eyes, ’twould all be over and done with. LADY MILLICENT. Sensible girl. ALICE. ’Tis time she should see which way her bread was spread. SUSAN. Come, Jockie, come ladies—come Gran—we’ll be off to the quiet of our own place where I can learn her ladyship the steps and capers. GRANDMOTHER. [_Rising and pointing to an advancing figure_.] You’d best make haste. The mice be a-running from their holes once more—t’wouldn’t do for they to know aught about this. SUSAN. Let us go quickly then.