Dot knows will be
fulfilled before long.

A young doll-maker May visits Dot to unburden her heavy heart. The
young girl is to marry her old and rich employer Tackleton, in order to
save her foster-father from want, but she cannot forget her old
sweetheart, a sailor named Eduard, who left her years ago, never to
come back. Dot tries to console her, and gives her food for her old
father. When May has taken leave, Dot's husband John enters, bringing
a strange guest with him.

It is Eduard, who has however so disguised himself, that nobody
recognizes him. Dot receives him hospitably, and while he follows her
in another room, a very lively scene ensues, all the village people
flocking in to receive their letters and parcels at John's hands.

{374}

In the second act John rests from his labour in his garden, while Dot,
who finds her husband, who is considerably older than herself, somewhat
too self-confident and phlegmatic, tries to make him appreciate her
more by arousing his jealousy. While they thus talk and jest May
enters, followed by her old suitor, who has already chosen the
wedding-ring for her. Eduard listens to his wooing with ill concealed
anxiety, and Tackleton, not pleased to find a stranger in his friend's
house, gruffly asks his name. The strange sailor tells him, that he
left his father and his sweetheart to seek his fortune elsewhere, and
that he has come back rich and independent, only to find his father
dead and his sweetheart lost to him. His voice moves May strangely,
but Tackleton wants to see his riches. Eduard shows them some fine
jewels, which so delight Dot, that she begins to adorn herself with
them and to dance about the room. Eduard presents her with a beautiful
cross, and seizes the opportunity to reveal to her his identity,
entreating her not to betray him. Then he turns to May, begging her to
chose one of the trinkets, but Tackleton interferes, saying that his
promised bride does not need any jewels from strange people. Dot is
greatly embarrassed, and Tackleton, mistaking her agitation, believes,
that she has fallen in love with the sailor, and insinuates as much to
her husband, whom he invites to have a glass of beer with him.

This unusual generosity on the part of the avaricious old man excites
the clever little wife's {375} suspicion. May having withdrawn, she
greets the friend of her youth with great ostentation (knowing herself
secretly watched by John and Tackleton), a