_Mrs. Cromwell:_
She's a very old lady, and can't speak for herself.

_Bridget:_
I meant no ill manners, grandmother.

_Mrs. Cromwell:_
Never mind your manners child. But don't encourage your father. He
doesn't need it. This house is all commotion as it is.

_Bridget:_
I can't help it. There's so much going on everywhere. The King doesn't
deal fairly by people, I'm sure. Men like father must say it.

_Elizabeth:_
Have you put the lavender in the rooms?

_Bridget:_
No. I'll take it now.

(She takes a tray from the window and goes out.)

_Mrs. Cromwell:_
I don't know what will happen. I sometimes think the world isn't worth
quarrelling about at all. And yet I'm a silly old woman to talk like
that. But Oliver is a brave fellow--and John, all of them. I want them
to be brave in peace--that's the way you think at eighty.
(Reading.)
This Mr. Donne is a very good poet, but he's rather hard to understand.
I suppose that is being eighty, too. Mr. Herrick is very simple. John