company at all, Goodwife Corey.

_Phoebe._ Aunt Corey, let me go, too; my stint is done.

_Martha._ Nay, you must to bed, and Nancy too. Off with ye, and no
words.

_Nancy._ I'm none so old that I must needs be sent to bed like a
babe, I'd have you know that, Goody Corey. [_Sets away apple pan;
exit, with_ Phoebe _following sulkily._

_Martha._ Come, Ann.

_Ann._ I want no company. I have more fear with company than I have
alone.

_Martha._ Along with you, child.

_Olive._ Oh, Ann, you are forgetting your cape. Here, mother, you
carry it for her. Good-night, sweetheart.

_Ann._ I want no company, Goodwife Corey. [Martha _takes her
laughingly by the arm and leads her out._

_Paul._ It is a fine night out.

_Olive._ So I have heard.

_Paul._ You make a jest of me, Mistress Olive. Know you not when a
man is of a sudden left alone with a fair maid, he needs to try his
speech like a player his fiddle, to see if it be in good tune for
her ears; and what better way than to sound over and over again the
praise of the fine weather? What ailed Ann that she seemed so
strangely, Olive?

_Olive._ I know not. I think she had been overwrought by coming
alone through the woods.

_Paul._ She seemed ill at ease. Why spin you so steadily, Olive?

_Olive._ I must finish my stint.

_Paul._ Who set you a stint as if you were a child?

_Olive._ Mine own conscience, to which I will ever be a child.

_Paul._ Cease spinning, sweetheart.

_Olive._ Nay.

_Paul._ Come over here on the settle, there is something I would
tell thee.

_Olive._ Tell it, then. I can hear a distance of three feet or so.

_Paul._ I know thou canst, but come.

_Olive._ Nay, I will not. This is no courting night. I cannot idle
every night in the week.

_Paul._ Thou wouldst make a new commandment. A maid shall spin flax
every night in the week save the Sabbath, when she shall lay aside
her work and be courted. There be young men here in Salem Village,
though you may credit it not, Olive, who visit their maids twice
every week, and have the fire in the fore room kindled.

_Olive._ My mother thinks it not well that I should sit up oftener
than once a week, nor do I; but be not vexed by it, Paul.

_Paul._ I love thee better for it, sweetheart.

_Olive._ My stint is done.

_Paul._ Then come. (_She obeys._) Now for the news. This morning I
bought of Goodman Nourse his nine-acre lot for a homestead. What
thinkest th