Poor wandering one,

If such poor love as mine

Can help thee find

True peace of mind,

Why, take it — it is thine.

All. Take heart! no danger lowers ;

Take any heart— but ours!

Mabel Take heart! fair days will shine.

Take any heart — take mine!

(Mabel and Fred exit L.)

(Mabel and Fred go to mouth of cave L., and converse. Kate beckons her sisters, who form in a semicircle around her.)

Edith.

What ought we to do,

Gentle sister?, say?

Propriety, we know,

Says we ought to stay.

While sympathy exclaims,

"Free them from your tether;

Play at other games;

Leave them here together."

Kate.

Her case may any day

Be yours, my dear, or mine ;

Let her make her hay

While the sun doth shine.

Let us compromise

(Our hearts are not of leather):

Let us shut our eyes

And talk about the weather.

(Edith, Kate, and girls retire up, and sit two and two facing each other, in a line across the stage.)

(Chattering Chorus, during which Fred and Mabel fondle)

How beautifully blue the sky!

The glass is rising very high.

Continue fine I hope it may,

And yet it rained but yesterday:

To-morrow it may pour again

(I hear the country wants some rain)

Yet people say, I know not why,

That we shall have a warm July.