The JUDGE and the OLD LADY go out to the left.
THE OTHER ONE goes after them.
Curtain.
[ACT II]
A huge room with whitewashed walls and a ceiling of darkened beams. The windows are small and deeply set, with bars on the outside. The room is crowded with furniture of every kind: wardrobes, chiffoniers, dressers, chests, tables. On the furniture are placed silver services, candelabra, candlesticks, pitchers, table ware, vases, statues, etc.
There is a door in the rear. Portraits of the JUDGE and the OLD LADY hang on the rear wall, one on either side of the door.
A harp stands beside a small sewing-table with an easy chair near it.
AMELIA is standing before a table at the right, trying to clean a coffee-set of silver.
The sun is shining in through the windows in the background.
NEIGHBOUR. [Enters] Well, child, how is your patience?
AMELIA. Thank you, neighbour, it might be worse. But I never had a worse job than this silver service here. I have worked at it for half an hour and cannot get it clean.
NEIGHBOUR. That's strange, but I suppose there are reasons for it, as the Judge says. Could you sleep last night?
AMELIA. Thank you, I slept very well. But do you know that father spent the whole night in the vineyard with his rattle——?