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.
[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?