_]
DAME (_sharply_). Isabel! You gaze without!
ISABEL (_nodding_). Upon those great trees, mother. How beautiful they are!
How like sentinels they stand at our door guarding us!
FLAT-FOOT (_growling_). What nonsense! You'd better be spinning.
ISABEL (_not heeding_). Mother, see you that old oak! See how proudly it
lifts its head up into the sky! 'T is the king of the forest!
HANGING-LIP (_growling_). I never heard such foolish talk!
ISABEL (_not heeding_). Mother, a song has come to me,--'t is a song to the
beautiful trees. Let me stop to write it down, while my heart is full of
it.
BROAD-THUMB (_to the Dame_). Do not permit it, sister! She should be
working. She can scarcely spin at all.
DAME (_showing much feeling_). Isabel! Isabel! Not a maid in the village
thinks of anything but spinning.
ISABEL. Mother, let me stop! Soon the song will leave me. I may ne'er hear
it again.
FLAT-FOOT (_to the Dame_). Sister, she will bring you to shame.
HANGING-LIP. Already the village folk laugh at her!
BROAD-THUMB (_nodding_). Aye! They call her "the Dreamer." I myself have
heard them.
ISABEL. I care not what they call me!
DAME (_raising her voice_). Nay, but I care.
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