WOOD. (_aside_) I see, Carver's been at the sherry! MRS. C. Come here, Marmy! you don't mind me calling you Marmy? Marmaduke is such a mouthful, whereas, Marmy is---- WOOD. Mrs. Carver, you're at liberty to Marmy me as much as you think proper, but allow me to observe, that having already paid two visits to the---- MRS. C. Yes, yes! now, listen to me! in a word, I am not the woman you take me for! WOOD. Eh? you're not Mother Woodcock?--I mean, Mrs. Woodcock's mother? MRS. C. Pshaw! I don't mean that! in short, Marmy, you have repeatedly said to yourself--don't deny it--"What a regular wet blanket I shall have for a mother-in-law." WOOD. No, no! I solemnly protest that--(_aside_)--I have said so no end of times! MRS. C. You are mistaken, Marmy! that austerity of deportment--that rigidity of manner was all assumed. Listen! You see this brooch? (_pointing to one in her dress_) It contains the portrait of the late Lieutenant-Colonel Carver, done in oil. WOOD. Carver done in oil? Yes! MRS. C. He was a very handsome man. WOOD. Was he? You're quite right to mention it. MRS. C. Especially on horseback. WOOD. Then I should certainly have had him taken on horseback! MRS. C. He vowed that he had never loved before! WOOD. Of course! ha, ha! that's what they all say! ha, ha! (_forgetting himself_) MRS. C. (_astonished_) Marmy! WOOD. I mean to say, I've heard say that's what they all say--that's all I say! MRS. C. I believed him, and we were married! That very day, Marmy, he retired on half-pay! WOOD. Did he though? and, how old was Carver done in oil? MRS. C. Thirty-nine! WOOD. You mean, he said he was thirty-nine. Ha, ha! I've known lots of fellows who say they're thirty-nine when in fact they--never mind! MRS. C. I was under twenty, had been strictly and severely brought up--is it then to be wondered at that I yearned, I may say, panted for those gaieties, those amusements so natural to my age? But, alas! it was not to be, for while I was revelling in the anticipation of entering into what is called "Life," he told me, and I repeat his own unfeeling selfish words, that he had had his _whack._ (_WOODCOCK looks astonished_) Whack! such a vulgar expression! WOOD. Low! very low, indeed! a colonel, especially a colonel on horseback, ought to have been above it! MRS. C. But that wasn't all; he actually had the barbarity, on our very wedding day, to draw up what he called a programme of our matrimonial existence, (_WOODCOCK still more astonished, suddenly remembers his own programme, which is lying on the table_) in which _I_ was condemned to the dull monotony of household duties. WOOD. (_aside_) How very odd. I wonder if there was anything in it about killing buttons, and sewing on caterpillars. MRS. C. While _he_, forsooth, was to enjoy himself; go out fishing, smoke his cigar, and take his nap in his arm chair. (_angrily_)