FANNY. I can’t say whether he did distinguish himself, but I know that he very soon distinguished me!
DOCTOR. The Boodles of Gloucestershire. There’s not a more respected family in the county! Come, my dear Mrs. Pelican, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll not hesitate in accepting Augustus Noodle—I mean Boodle—as a son-in-law!
MRS. P. Well, I’ll think the matter over, and then, perhaps, I may say yes.
FANNY (coaxingly). Suppose you say yes first, mamma, and think the matter over afterwards?
MRS. P. (ironically). But, Fanny, what about a certain party of “maturer years,” on whose experience you proposed to rely?
FANNY. Let me ask you, mamma, would it have been dutiful in a daughter to deprive her mother of the object of her early affection?
MAJOR. What’s that? “Early affection!”—“object!”
MRS. P. Yes; there stands the object (pointing to DOCTOR). In a word, I have been induced to accept the hand of Doctor Prettywell, from his many amiable qualities and (aside to DOCTOR) his constancy. Here, Vicessimus (holding her hand out to him).
DOCTOR. Thanks, Cleopatra (taking her hand and kissing it).