The screen reads, "Annunciation." Some time has passed since the last scene. It is an unspecified spring evening, after dinner. Amanda and Laura clear the table. Amanda nags Tom about combing his hair, looking after his appearance, and smoking less. Tom steps onto the landing and addresses the audience as the narrator. There was a dance hall across the alley, he tells us, from which music emanated on spring evenings. Rainbow reflections from a mirror ball often found there way out through the windows. Couples made out in the alley, "the compensation for lives that passed like mine, without any change or adventure." But adventure was in the offing; in Germany, England, Spain the dogs of war were straining at the leash.
Amanda steps out onto the landing to join Tom. They speak more gently than before. Each makes a wish on the moon. Tom won't tell his; Amanda wishes for the success and happiness of her children. Tom announces that there will be a gentleman caller: he has asked a nice young man from the warehouse to dinner. Amanda is thrilled. Tom reveals that the caller will be coming tomorrow. This sends Amanda into a tizzy. There are a million preparations to be made. Tom tells her not to make a fuss, but she has already begun. She frets about the linen, the silver, new curtains, chintz covers, a new floor lamp, and despairs that there won't be time to re-paper the walls.
Back inside the apartment, Amanda quizzes Tom about the young man. Her first concern is that he not be a drunkard: "Old maids are better off than wives of drunkards!" Tom thinks she is being far too premature, marrying them off already. The interrogation continues. The man is a shipping clerk at the warehouse named Jim O'Connor. He makes 85 dollars a month. He's neither ugly nor too good-looking. He goes to night school to study radio engineering and public speaking. He's really into self-improvement. Amanda is pleased, particularly by his ambition. These are the facts she wants to know, whether or not the young man is a serious suitor. Tom warns her that Jim does not know about Laura; it was just a simple invitation to dinner. That doesn't matter, Amanda replies, Laura will dazzle him. He asks her not to expect too much of Laura since she is crippled, painfully shy, and lives in her own little world. To others who do not love her as family, she's a little peculiar. Amanda punctuates his remarks with, "Don't say crippled!" and "Don't say peculiar," but she doesn't belabor the point.
Tom gets up to leave. Amanda demands to know where he's going. To the movies, he replies, and leaves. Amanda is troubled, but the excitement returns and she calls Laura out onto the landing. Amanda tells Laura to make a wish on the moon. Laura is puzzled. Amanda, overcome with emotion, tells her to wish for happiness and good fortune.