MRS. G. Yes, Betsy, you may come in. (lays the basket she carries on table, L. and puts up her veil)
BETSY. (enters by door, R.) Well, mum, does he suspect nothing yet?
MRS. G. Nothing. He has not yet seen my face—but if he had, I think this red wig, these spectacles, and this cravat would completely prevent his recognizing me.
BETSY. He little thinks, mum, ’tis his own lawful wife he’s running away with instead of a fine foreign Countess.
MRS. G. Oh, Betsy, when I think of that, I could tear his eyes out. A man, Betsy, that I thought the most faithful creature woman ever was blessed with, to deceive me so. A working model of a husband that I may say I made out of nothing.
BETSY. Ah, mum, I know what husbands is made of! I was once accidentally married myself for three weeks to a sea cap’n, who took me, mum, as his mate—but I diskivered I was only his second mate, for he’d got another wife alive, mum—and so he slipped hisself through the wedding ring that way. Oh! mum, husbands isn’t to be trusted no ways.
MRS. G. ’Twas your experience and advice, Betsy, that put me upon this plan of trying Mr. Greenfinch’s fidelity. Before he went to Paris about that legacy left him by his aunt, there wasn’t a more dutiful little husband in Peckham Rye.
BETSY. No, more there wasn’t, mum. But after he’d been a month in Paris, he wrote to say he’d got into the hands of the French lawyers, and couldn’t return so soon as he expected.
MRS. G. Upon which I resolved to run over to Paris, if ’twas only for a day—for I thought he must be miserable without his wife.
BETSY. A very popular delusion amongst women, mum.