Steve. Well, Mother, what’s up now? Gran, you here? Why, Dorry, what be you a-crying for?
Dorry. I wants to be let to go to the dancing, Dad—now that I’ve got my frock on and all.—O, I wants to be let to go.
Steve. Well, Mother—what do you say? ’Twouldn’t hurt for she to look in about half an hour, and Annie and me we could bring her back betimes.
Dorry. O, Dad, I wants to go if ’twas only for a minute.
Steve. There, there—you shall go and we’ll say no more about it.
Jane. I never knowed you give in to her so foolish like this afore, Steve.
Steve. Well, Mother, ’tain’t every day as a man’s married, that ’tain’t.
Vashti. And so you’re to be wed come to-morrow, Steve? They tells me as you’re to be wed.
Steve. That’s right enough, Gran.
Vashti. [Rising.] And there be no resting in me to-day, Steve. There be summat as burns quick in the bones of my body and that will not let me bide.—And ’tis steps as I hears on the roadside and in the fields—and ’tis a bad taste as is in my victuals, and I must be moving, and peering about, and a-taking cold water into my mouth for to do away with the thing on my tongue, which is as the smell of death—So ’tis.