it can be
got.

JOHN

Where do they grow, Mary?

MARY

I don't know, John; but I am sure they do,
somewhere.

JOHN

Somehow I wish sometimes, I almost wish
I could have gone abroad for a week or so to
places like where acacias grow naturally.

MARY

O, would you really, John?

JOHN

No, not really. But I just think of it
sometimes.

MARY

Where would you have gone?

JOHN

O, I don't know. The East or some such
place. I've often heard people speak of it,
and somehow it seemed so...

MARY

The East, John? Not the East. I don't
think the East somehow is quite respectable.

JOHN

O well, it's all right, I never went, and
never shall go now. It doesn't matter.

MARY [the photographs catching her eye]

O, John, I meant to tell you. Such a dreadful
thing happened.

JOHN

What, Mary?

MARY

Well, Liza was dusting the photographs,
and when she came to Jane's she says she
hadn't really begun to dust it, only looked at
it, and it fell down, and that bit of glass is
broken right out of it.

JOHN

Ask her not to look at it so hard another
time.

MARY

O, what do you mean, John?

JOHN

Well, that's how she broke it; she said so,
and as I know you believe in Liza...

MARY

Well, I can't think she'd tell a lie, John.

JOHN

No, of course not. But she mustn't look
so hard another time.

MARY

And it's poor little Jane's photograph.
She will feel it so.

JOHN

O, that's all right, we'll get it mended.

MARY

Still, it's a dreadful thing to have happened.

JOHN

We'll get it mended, and if Jane is unhappy
about it she can have Alice's frame. Alice
is too young to notice it.

MARY

She isn't, John. She'd notice it quick.

JOHN

Well, George, then.

MARY [looking at photo thoughtfully]

Well, perhaps George might give up his
frame.

JOHN

Yes, tell Liza to change it. Why not make
her do it now?

MARY

Not to-day, John. Not on a Sunday.
She shall do it to-morrow by the time you get
back from the office.

JOHN

All right. It might have been worse.

MARY

It's bad enough. I wish it hadn't happened.

JOHN

It might have been worse. It might have
been Aunt Martha.

MARY

I'd sooner it had been her than poor little
Jane.

JOHN

If it had been Aunt Martha's photograph
she'd have walked in next day and seen it for
certain; I know Aunt Martha. Then there'd
have been trouble.

MARY

But, John, how could she have known?

JOHN

I