Must we think of them at once? Couldn’t we just settle down?
Lydia.
[Rapping him playfully with her little prayer-book.] Settle down? Without knowing who’s about? The idea! Do you think my mamma brought me up to be that kind of a housekeeper?
Richard.
[With a courtly bend.] I’m sure you’re the best housekeeper a man ever had!
Lydia.
[Sweeping him a courtesy.] Thank you, thank you, dear Richard! [Then, suddenly picking up her long flowered skirts so that the lavender clocks twinkle above the little slippered feet.] And I’ll prove it to you! [Puzzled, half to herself.] Though I don’t know why I said that about the people a minute ago. Things puzzle me so sometimes. I’ll race you to the kitchen—though it’s unladylike, I suppose, to run—but I do want to make you a pasty. Mamma always made them for my papa, and my marriage being so near, she taught me last week. I made them perfectly yesterday!
[Lydia breaks into a run; Richard catches her wrist, and together they are running into the cottage, when the ear-trumpets on the table meet their astonished eyes.
Richard.
[Pausing and examining them.] Lydia! What are they? What on earth can they all be?