_)

MADELINE: Grandfather Morton made this table. I suppose he and
Grandfather Fejevary used to sit here and talk--they were great old
pals. (_slowly_ HOLDEN _turns and looks out at the hill_) Yes. How
beautiful the hill must have been--before there was a college there.
(_he looks away from the hill_) Did you know Grandfather Morton?

HOLDEN: Yes, I knew him. (_speaking of it against his will_) I had a
wonderful talk with him once; about Greece--and the cornfields, and
life.

MADELINE: I'd like to have been a pioneer! Some ways they had it fierce,
but think of the fun they had! A whole big land to open up! A big new
life to begin! (_her hands closing in from wideness to a smaller thing_)
Why did so much get shut out? Just a little way back--anything might
have been. What happened?

HOLDEN: (_speaking with difficulty_) It got--set too soon.

MADELINE: (_all of her mind open, trying to know_) And why did it?
Prosperous, I suppose. That seems to set things--set them in fear. Silas
Morton wasn't afraid of Felix Fejevary, the Hungarian revolutionist. He
laid this country at that refugee's feet! That's what Uncle Felix says
himself--with the left half of his mind. Now--the Hindu
revolutionists--! (_pause_) I took a walk late yesterday afternoon.
Night came, and for some reason I thought of how many nights have
come--nights the earth has known long before we knew the earth. The moon
came up and I thought of how moonlight made this country beautiful
before any man knew that moonlight was beautiful. It gave me a feeling
of coming from something a long way back. Moving toward--what will be
here when I'm not here. Moving. We seem here, now, in America, to have
forgotten we're moving. Think it's just _us_--just now. Of course, that
would make us afraid, and--ridiculous.

(_Her father comes in_.)

IRA: Your Aunt Isabel--did she go away--and leave you?

MADELINE: She's coming back.

IRA: For you?

MADELINE: She--wants me to go with her. This is Professor Holden,
father.

HOLDEN: How do you do, Mr Morton?

IRA: (_nods, not noticing_ HOLDEN_'s offered hand_) How'do. When is she
coming back?

MADELINE: Soon.

IRA: And then you're going with her?

MADELINE: I--don't know.

IRA: I say you go with her. You want them all to come down on us? (_to_
HOLDEN) What are you here for?

MADELINE: Aunt Isabel brought Professor Holden, father.

IRA: Oh. Then you--you tell her what to do. You make her do it. (_he
goes into the