Celia. It's all very well, dear, for you to "Oh, oh!" at me, but I ask you, Aunt Ida, have you ever been pitied and patronized as I was here to-night, as I have been all these years, and looked upon as old and ugly and dowdy and dull?
Aunt Ida. (Sympathetically) Not that, Celia, not that.
Celia. Oh, don't think I don't know those things about myself. I do, but I don't like to hear them all the time, just the same. Have you ever been a wall-flower at every ball you have gone to, while all the other girls danced and had a perfectly lovely time? Have you ever been seated next to the oldest, deafest members of the community at every dinner party you have gone to? Positively, Aunt Ida, I've grown so now that I can't talk at a dinner party except through an ear trumpet. (Goes R. and then returns.) And, if that Tarver creature or a Jim Raleigh or that old fossil of an Admiral or any other mortal trouser-wearing remnant of humanity had ever condescended to propose to me, there isn't a man or woman in this entire household, beginning with Martin and the boot boy, who wouldn't respect me and treat me quite differently in consequence.
Aunt Ida. Yes, I know it.
Celia. Oh, don't I know it?
Aunt Ida. Yes, it has been pretty well rubbed in.
Celia. Yes, I should say it has. Well, it has just been rubbed in so hard to-night that, as Phyllis would say, the straw has broken the worm's back and the worm has turned at last. Never, never, never again will I be content to be what I have been all these years. "Good old Celia." (Walking R.) Yes, "Nice old thing." (Walking to C.) Celia who doesn't want things and Celia who looks after things and Celia who doesn't mind things and Celia who attends to things. Well, Celia who attends to things is dead. Now everything attends to Celia. (Warn curtain. From now on, gay and laughing and walking to and fro across stage with Aunt Ida slowly, her arm around Aunt Ida's waist.) When the day begins and Father shouts, "God bless my soul, what's the matter with this coffee?" (Turns right) I'll be upstairs in bed, drinking chocolate. And then, when the evening comes and Martin says, "Beg pardon, Miss, but the whiskey is out," I'll say, "I don't care. Colonel Smith doesn't drink." (Turns L.) Instead of keeping house accounts, I'm going to write my love letters, and instead of ordering groceries, I'm going to order frocks, and wait until you see the frocks I'm going to order. (They stop walking.) I'm going to be a blazing dream. I'll be younger than the youngest of them, gayer than the gayest, and what do I care now what any of them say or do or think about me? I'll wear just as many green stockings as they wish at as many weddings as they please, and I'll laugh and I'll sing and I'll dance them into holes, because why? Well, I'll have a sweetheart of my own, don't you see? I'll be the lady love of--Wobbles. (Waves her handkerchief in the air and she and Aunt Ida embrace, laughing heartily.)
QUICK CURTAIN
(Running time, thirty to thirty-five minutes, depending on laughs.)