ntly into space._)

KATE. Well? What notion have you got now?

MARY. Oh! just think, Kate! How would you like a boy who was dark and
tall, and well set up and well to do?

KATE. I'd just leap at him.

MARY (_laughing_). Agh! I don't think he'll ever come, Kate!

KATE. I think you've plenty on hand to manage. (BROWN _opens the yard
door and resumes his old-position from which he stares at the
dresser_). You're back again, are you?

BROWN. Aye.

KATE. What ails you now?

BROWN. I'm looking the spanner.

MARY. The spanner?

BROWN. The spanner, Miss Mary. It's for turning the nuts like.

KATE. Have you never got it yet?

BROWN. Do you think I've got eyes in the back of my head? Underneath
the seat, beside the salt-box, on the right near the wee crock in the
left hand corner. (_He makes a movement to open one of the drawers of
the dresser._)

KATE. Will you get out of that, ignorance. It's not there.

BROWN (_with an appealing look at_ MARY). Maybe its in the parlour?

MARY. Well, I'll take a look round. (_She goes through the door to
living rooms._)

BROWN (_mysteriously_). Did you hear the news?

KATE. No. (_Very much interested._) What?

BROWN. Ach! You women never know anything.

KATE. What's the news? Somebody killed?

BROWN. No. More serious.

KATE (_alarmed_). God bless me! What is it?

BROWN. Andy McMinn has a sister.

KATE (_disappointed_). Ach!

BROWN. And she's trying to get a man.

KATE. Well. I knowed that this years.

BROWN. And Mr. John Murray is a widow man.

KATE. You mean to be telling me that Mr. John has a notion of that old
thing? Go long with you!

BROWN. Did you ever hear tell of a widow man that never got married
again.

KATE. Plenty. Don't come in here talking blethers.

BROWN. Whist. There's more in what I'm telling you than you think. And
I'll hold you to a shilling that Sarah McMinn will be Mrs. John Murray
before one month.

KATE. Who told you?

BROWN. Ach. You've no more head than a yellow yorling. Where has Mr.
John been going to these wheen of nights?

KATE (_thinking_). Andy McMinns!

BROWN. Aye. Do you think it is to see old Andy? And sure he's been
talking to me all morning about the way the house is being kept. No
hand to save the waste; bread and things destroyed; hens laying away;
eggs ate up by the dozen and chickens lost and one thing and another.
And hinting about what money a good saving woman would bring him. And
Mr. Daniel----

KATE