Giles Corey, Yeoman

e. Oh, Ann, you are forgetting your cape. Here, mother, you carry it for her. Good-night, sweetheart.

Ann. I want no company, Goodwife Corey. [Martha _takes her laughingly by the arm and leads her out._

Paul. It is a fine night out.

Olive. So I have heard.

Paul. You make a jest of me, Mistress Olive. Know you not when a man is of a sudden left alone with a fair maid, he needs to try his speech like a player his fiddle, to see if it be in good tune for her ears; and what better way than to sound over and over again the praise of the fine weather? What ailed Ann that she seemed so strangely, Olive?

Olive. I know not. I think she had been overwrought by coming alone through the woods.

Paul. She seemed ill at ease. Why spin you so steadily, Olive?

Olive. I must finish my stint.

Paul. Who set you a stint as if you were a child?

Olive. Mine own conscience, to which I w