"See if you can't get this accursèd splinter out of my eye! I have so
much to do and can't accomplish anything!"

MOTHER (_smiling_).

Yes! yes!--I never see Leonard any more, by the way. How does that
happen?

CLARA.

Let him stay away!

MOTHER.

I hope you are not seeing him anywhere else, except here at the house!

CLARA.

Is it because I stay out too long when I go to the well in the evening
that you have reason to suspect that?

MOTHER.

No, not that. But it was just for that reason that I gave him permission
to come here to the house, so that he wouldn't lie in wait for you out
there in the dark. My mother would never allow that, either!

CLARA.

I don't see him at all!