hey'm caught, they don't.

IVY. They du.

CONNIE. 'Twas her bird.

IVY. He gave her sixpence for it.

GLADYS. She didn't take it.

CONNIE. There it is on the ground.

IVY. She might have.

GLADYS. He'll p'raps take my squirrel, tu.

IVY. The bird sang--I 'eard it! Right up in the sky. It wouldn't
have sanged if it weren't glad.

GLADYS. Well, Mercy cried.

IVY. I don't care.

GLADYS. 'Tis a shame! And I know something. Mrs. Strangway's at
Durford.

CONNIE. She's--never!

GLADYS. I saw her yesterday. An' if she's there she ought to be
here. I told mother, an' she said: "Yu mind yer business." An' when
she goes in to market to-morrow she'm goin' to see. An' if she's
really there, mother says, 'tis a fine tu-du an' a praaper scandal.
So I know a lot more'n yu du.

[Ivy stares at her.]

CONNIE. Mrs. Strangway told mother she was goin' to France for the
winter because her mother was ill.

GLADYS. 'Tisn't, winter now--Ascension Day. I saw her cumin' out o'
Dr. Desert's house. I know 'twas her because she had on a blue dress
an' a proud luke. Mother says the doctor come over here tu often
before Mrs. Strangway went away, just afore Christmas. They was old
sweethearts before she married Mr. Strangway. [To Ivy] 'Twas yure
mother told mother that.

[Ivy gazes at them more and more wide-eyed.]

CONNIE. Father says if Mrs. Bradmere an' the old Rector knew about
the doctor, they wouldn't 'ave Mr. Strangway 'ere for curate any
longer; because mother says it takes more'n a year for a gude wife to
leave her 'usband, an' 'e so fond of her. But 'tisn't no business of
ours, father says.

GLADYS. Mother says so tu. She's praaper set against gossip.
She'll know all about it to-morrow after market.

IVY. [Stamping her foot] I don't want to 'ear nothin' at all; I
don't, an' I won't.

[A rather shame faced silence falls on the girls.]

GLADYS. [In a quick whisper] 'Ere's Mrs. Burlacombe.

[There enters fawn the house a stout motherly woman with a round
grey eye and very red cheeks.]

MRS. BURLACOMBE. Ivy, take Mr. Strangway his ink, or we'll never
'eve no sermon to-night. He'm in his thinkin' box, but 'tis not a
bit o' yuse 'im thinkin' without 'is ink. [She hands her daughter an
inkpot and blotting-pad. Ivy Takes them and goes out] What ever's
this? [She picks up the little bird-cage.]

GLADYS. 'Tis Mercy Jarland's. Mr. Strangway let her