University of Virginia Library

II.

Enter a Boy and a Girl with a pear.
Boy.
Oh, Ellen, have you heard the news?

Girl.
To tell it you cannot refuse.

Boy.
Indeed I can, though, if I choose!

Girl.
Oh, very well, you know, who cares?

Boy.
You do, Miss Pert, for all your airs!

Girl.
I see you want of my pear a piece!

Boy.
Barbara is lost!

Girl.
Oh—if you please!
I am so sorry!

[Cries.
Boy.
So am I.
But who could help it? Do not cry.

Girl.
Poor Barbara, from her parents parted!

Boy.
Yes, both of them are broken-hearted.
She promised her mother to be dumb
Of pet lambs for a month to come.
But one night, in her bed, I think,
She said, “The grass began to wink—”
Those pretty verses—if you know 'em?

Girl.
Yes, she was mad about that poem.

Boy.
And in the morning Barbara's bed
Was empty!

Girl.
Little woolly-head!
Perhaps out of the pane she saw
A pet-lamb white without a flaw;
A fairy pet-lamb of the night,
Which drew her with his wool of white,
So that she was forced to follow it,
In a sort of a sleep-walking fit.

Boy.
I do not believe in such a lamb,
Any more than I do in the Derby Ram.

Girl.
You boys are always unbelieving.

Boy.
You girls are giddy and deceiving.

Girl.
Well, let us comfort one another.

Boy.
And pity the father and the mother.

Girl.
And go in search of Barbara, hey?

Boy.
Yes, each shall go a different way.

[Exeunt.