Stella. Certainly. I will read, with your permission, Whittier’s “Maud Muller.”

Festus. I should be delighted to hear it.

Reading. “Maud Muller.” Stella.

Festus. Beautiful, beautiful! Madam, this, too, affects me.

Stella. How?

Festus. When I think “it might have been.”

Stella. Then I wouldn’t think of it, if I were you. What shall we have now?

Festus. Suppose we read together.

Stella. Together?

Festus. Yes, a scene from some play. There’s “The Marble Heart.”