's no money. One could never get a shilling together
here. In America there's money to have and to spend and to send home.

THIRD GIRL
Every girl gets married in America.

_Ellen comes down_.

ELLEN
I'm glad you came. I have tea ready for you. I can't go to
Gilroy's to-night.

_Some come to the table and some remain near the door_.

A GIRL
_(at table, to Ellen)_ They say that a peat fire like that
will seem very strange to us after America. Bridget wondered at it
when she came back. "Do civilized people really cook at the like of
them?" said she.

A BOY
It's the little houses with only three rooms in them that will
seem strange. I'm beginning to wonder myself at their thatch and
their mud walls.

ANOTHER GIRL
Houses in bogs and fields. It was a heart-break trying
to keep them as we'd like to keep them. A GIRL _(at door)_ Ah, but
I'll never forget Gortan and the little road to Aughnalee.

ANOTHER GIRL
I think I'll be lonesome for a long time. I'll be
thinking on my brothers and sisters. I nursed and minded all the
little ones.

FIRST BOY
A girl like you, Ellen, is foolish to be staying here.

SECOND BOY
She'll be coming in the fall. We'll be glad to see you,
Ellen.

ELLEN
I have no friends in America.

FIRST GIRL
I have no friends there, either. But I'll get on. You
could get on better than any of us, Ellen.

SECOND GIRL
She's waiting for her school. It will be a little place
by the side of a bog.

THIRD GIRL
_(going to Ellen)_ There would be little change in that.
And isn't it a life altogether different from this life that we have
been longing for? To be doing other work, and to be meeting strange
people. And instead of bare roads and market-towns, to be seeing
streets, and crowds, and theaters.

ELLEN
_(passionately)_ O what do you know about streets and theaters?
You have only heard of them. They are finer than anything you could
say. They are finer than anything you could think of, after a story,
when you'd be A GIRL You'll be going after all, Ellen.

ELLEN
I won't be going.

FIRST GIRL
Well, maybe you'll be down at Gilroy's. We must go now.

_The girls go to the door. Ellen goes with them_.

ONE OF THE BOYS
Phil said that an egg was all he could touch while
he was on the sea.

SECOND BOY
God help us, if that was all Phil could take.

THIRD BOY
Light your pipes now, and we'll go.

_Ellen has parted with the girls. The boys light their pipes at fire.
They go t