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THE FIRST ACT
39

Father McKee’s Voice

The old man left all right.

Joe’s Voice

He started a little too late.

The R. F. D.’s Voice

I’ll have a look for him.

[The rest is lost in a babble of Italian as Amy comes on to the porch and the others follow her, not the least among them being the two Italian hands, Giorgio and Angelo whose volubility subsides only as Amy enters the room.

As for Amy, she is all that Tony said of her and much more. She wears a pretty dress, new, ready-made, and inexpensive, and a charming and equally cheap hat. Her shoes are bright coloured and her handbag matches them. But her own loveliness is quite beyond belief. She is small and plump and vivid and her golden hair shimmers about her face like morning sunshine. She herself shines with an inner, constitutional energy. Her look is, to be sure, just a little tired. She probably is not more than twenty-two or -three, but she seems older. Her great quality is definiteness. It lends pathos to her whole personality. At the moment, her vanity is piqued by Tony’s remissness and she carries matters with a hand a little too high to be