[_The_ GRANDMOTHER, SUSAN, LADY MILLICENT _with_ ALICE _and_ JOCKIE _go out as a crowd of village girls come on to the green_, _and laughing and talking together_, _arrange themselves to practise a Country Dance_. _End of Act I_. ACT II.—Scene 1. _Groups of village girls are sitting or standing about on the green_. _A dais has been put up at one end of it_. MARION. How slow the time do pass, this May Day. ROSE. Let’s while it away with a song or two. [_They all join in singing_. _At the end of the song the gipsy comes slowly and painfully across the green_, _casting black looks to right and to left_. _She is followed by_ SUSAN, _who appears weighed down by sadness_. ROSE. Good afternoon, Princess Royal Rags. Are we to see you cutting capers before his lordship this afternoon? MARION. Get along and hide your bare feet behind the tree, Royal. I’d be ashamed to go without shoes if ’twas me. SUSAN. O leave me alone—you be worse nor a nest of waspes—that you be. GRANDMOTHER. [_Turning fiercely round_.] Us’ll smoke them out of their holes one day—see if us do not. [_They pass over to the tree where the_ GRANDMOTHER _sits down and_ SUSAN _crouches by her side_. _Presently they are joined by_ JOCKIE. _The girls sing a verse or two of another song_, _and during this_ LADY MILLICENT, _enveloped in a big cloak_, _goes over to the tree_, _followed by_ ALICE, _also wearing a long cloak and they sit down by the side of_ SUSAN. MARION. [_Pointing_.] Who are those yonder, Rose? ROSE. I’m sure I don’t know, Marion—strangers, may be. MARION. O my heart goes wild this afternoon. ROSE. Mine too. Look, there they come. [_The Music begins to play and old_ LADY CULLEN, _followed by her lady companions_, _comes slowly towards the dais_, _on which she seats herself_. LADY CULLEN. Dear me, what a gathering to be sure. HER LADY. Indeed it is an unusual sight. LADY CULLEN. And O what a sad infatuation on the part of my poor boy. HER LADY. The war has been known to turn many a brain. LADY CULLEN. And yet my son holds his own with the brightest intelligences of the day. HER LADY. Only one little spot of his lordship’s brain seems to be affected. LADY CULLEN. Just so. But here he comes, poor misguided youth. [LORD CULLEN _comes slowly over the green_, _looking to right and to left_. _He mounts the dais and sits down by his mother_, _and the music plays for a country dance_. “_The Twenty Ninth of May_.” _The girls arrange themselves_, _and during the dance_ LORD CULLEN _scans each face very eagerly_. _The dance ends and the girls pass in single file before the dais_. LORD CULLEN. No, no—that was not the music of it, that was not the dance—not a face among them resembles the image I carry in my heart. LADY CULLEN. [_Aside_.] Thank goodness. May that face never be seen again. [_A fresh group come up and another dance is formed and danced_.