MAURTEEN BRUIN
That’s true—­but she’s too young to know it’s true.

BRIDGET BRUIN
She’s old enough to know that it is wrong
To mope and idle.

SHAWN BRUIN
I’ve little blame for her;
And mother’s tongue were harder still to bear,
But for her fancies:  this is May Eve too,
When the good people post about the world,
And surely one may think of them to-night. 
Maire, have you the primroses to fling
Before the door to make a golden path
For them to bring good luck into the house? 
Remember, they may steal new-married brides
After the fall of twilight on May Eve.

    (MAIRE BRUIN goes over to the window and takes flowers
      from the bowl and strews them outside the door.)

                        FATHER HART
  You do well, daughter, because God permits
  Great power to the good people on May Eve.

                        SHAWN BRUIN
  They can work all their will with primroses;
  Change them to golden money, or little flames
  To burn up those who do them any wrong.

                        MARIE BRUIN (in a dreamy voice)
  I had no sooner flung them by the door
  Than the wind cried and hurried them away;
  And then a child came running in the wind
  And caught them in her hands and fondled them: 
  Her dress was green:  her hair was of red gold;
  Her face was pale as water before dawn.

FATHER HART
Whose child can this be?

MAURTEEN BRUIN
No one’s child at all. 
She often dreams that someone has gone by
When there was nothing but a puff of wind.

                      MARIE BRUIN

They will not bring good luck into the house,
For they have blown the primroses away;
Yet I am glad that I was courteous to them,
For are not they, likewise, children of God?

                      FATHER HART

Colleen, they are the children of the fiend,
And they have power until the end of Time,
When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle
And hack them into pieces.

                        MARIE BRUIN
                                He will smile,
  Father, perhaps, and open His great door,
  And call the pretty and kind into His house.

                        FATHER HART
  Did but the lawless angels see that door,
  They would fall, slain by everlasting peace;
  And when such angels knock upon our doors
  Who goes with them must drive through the same storm.

    (A knock at the door. MAIRE BRUIN opens it and then
      goes to the dresser and fills a porringer with milk and
      hands it through the door, and takes it back empty and
      closes the door.)

                        MARIE BRUIN
  A little queer old woman cloaked in green,
  Who came to beg a porringer of milk.