MRS. MAJOR. Yes, which of the two?
MAJOR (after a violent effort). My wife! There! I’ve said it. (FANNY whispers him.) Confound it!
MRS. P. Ah! (screaming and falling into a chair).
MRS. MAJOR. Come, major, and as your reward you shall hear me issue my orders in such a style.
[Exit at L. H., hurrying MAJOR with her, and calling, as she goes out, Joseph! Mary! Sophia!
MRS. P. (suddenly starting up from her chair). So! she—she’s to be everybody, and I’m to be nobody! a cipher, a nonentity! Was there ever such ingratitude? I, who left my own home to live with them, without even waiting to be asked, to give them the benefit of my experience, to take upon myself the entire control of their domestic affairs—nay, even to carry my maternal affection so far as not to allow either of them to interfere in anything whatever!
FANNY (aside). Poor dear mamma! she doesn’t see that’s the very reason why everything went wrong.
MRS. P. But I’ll forget them, I’ll renounce them, I’ll cast them off, I’ll abandon them to their unhappy fate; and when you’re comfortably married, dear, I’ll come and live with you (throwing her arms round FANNY, who tries to speak). No thanks, I see you are literally bursting with gratitude; but I am rewarded already! I feel it here—here! (striking her breast, then flings her arms round FANNY again, and hurries out at R. H.).
FANNY. Mercy on us! here’s a pretty piece of business! Live with me when I am married! Poor Augustus! he little suspects what a rod there is in pickle for him! It’s all Jeremiah’s fault, and it’s poor little I who am punished.
DOCTOR (without). In the parlor, is she? Very well!