ERNEST. There’s something I should like to say to you if you could spare me a moment. TWEENY. Willingly. What is it? ERNEST. What an ass I used to be, Tweeny. TWEENY (tolerantly). Oh, let bygones be bygones. ERNEST (sincerely, and at his very best). I’m no great shakes even now. But listen to this, Tweeny; I have known many women, but until I knew you I never knew any woman. TWEENY (to whose uneducated ears this sounds dangerously like an epigram). Take care--the bucket. ERNEST (hurriedly). I didn’t mean it in that way. (He goes chivalrously on his knees.) Ah, Tweeny, I don’t undervalue the bucket, but what I want to say now is that the sweet refinement of a dear girl has done more for me than any bucket could do. TWEENY (with large eyes). Are you offering to walk out with me, Erny? ERNEST (passionately). More than that. I want to build a little house for you--in the sunny glade down by Porcupine Creek. I want to make chairs for you and tables; and knives and forks, and a sideboard for you. TWEENY (who is fond of language). I like to hear you. (Eyeing him.) Would there be any one in the house except myself, Ernest? ERNEST (humbly). Not often; but just occasionally there would be your adoring husband. TWEENY (decisively). It won’t do, Ernest. ERNEST (pleading). It isn’t as if I should be much there. TWEENY. I know, I know; but I don’t love you, Ernest. I’m that sorry. ERNEST (putting his case cleverly). Twice a week I should be away altogether--at the dam. On the other days you would never see me from breakfast time to supper. (With the self-abnegation of the true lover.) If you like I’ll even go fishing on Sundays. TWEENY. It’s no use, Erny. ERNEST (rising manfully). Thank you, Tweeny; it can’t be helped. (Then he remembers.) Tweeny, we shall be disappointing the Gov. TWEENY (with a sinking). What’s that? ERNEST. He wanted us to marry. TWEENY (blankly). You and me? the Gov.! (Her head droops woefully. From without is heard the whistling of a happier spirit, and TWEENY draws herself up fiercely.) That’s her; that’s the thing what has stole his heart from me. (A stalwart youth appears at the window, so handsome and tingling with vitality that, glad to depose CRICHTON, we cry thankfully, ‘The Hero at last.’ But it is not the hero; it is the heroine. This splendid boy, clad in skins, is what nature has done for LADY MARY. She carries bow and arrows and a blow-pipe, and over her shoulder is a fat buck, which she drops with a cry of triumph. Forgetting to enter demurely, she leaps through the window.) (Sourly.) Drat you, Polly, why don’t you wipe your feet? LADY MARY (good-naturedly). Come, Tweeny, be nice to me. It’s a splendid buck. (But TWEENY shakes her off, and retires to the kitchen fire.) ERNEST. Where did you get it?