has strict orders as
to her behavior. She's to keep to two subjects: the weather and
everybody's health--Fine day and How do you do, you know--and not to
let herself go on things in general. That will be safe.

MRS. HIGGINS. Safe! To talk about our health! about our insides!
perhaps about our outsides! How could you be so silly, Henry?

HIGGINS [impatiently] Well, she must talk about something. [He controls
himself and sits down again]. Oh, she'll be all right: don't you fuss.
Pickering is in it with me. I've a sort of bet on that I'll pass her
off as a duchess in six months. I started on her some months ago; and
she's getting on like a house on fire. I shall win my bet. She has a
quick ear; and she's been easier to teach than my middle-class pupils
because she's had to learn a complete new language. She talks English
almost as you talk French.

MRS. HIGGINS. That's satisfactory, at all events.

HIGGINS. Well, it is and it isn't.

MRS. HIGGINS. What does that mean?

HIGGINS. You see, I've got her pronunciation all right; but you have to
consider not only how a girl pronounces, but what she pronounces; and
that's where--

They are interrupted by the parlor-maid, announcing guests.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill. [She withdraws].

HIGGINS. Oh Lord! [He rises; snatches his hat from the table; and makes
for the door; but before he reaches it his mother introduces him].

Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill are the mother and daughter who sheltered
from the rain in Covent Garden. The mother is well bred, quiet, and has
the habitual anxiety of straitened means. The daughter has acquired a
gay air of being very much at home in society: the bravado of genteel
poverty.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Mrs. Higgins] How do you do? [They shake hands].

MISS EYNSFORD HILL. How d'you do? [She shakes].

MRS. HIGGINS [introducing] My son Henry.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Your celebrated son! I have so longed to meet you,
Professor Higgins.

HIGGINS [glumly, making no movement in her direction] Delighted. [He
backs against the piano and bows brusquely].

Miss EYNSFORD HILL [going to him with confident familiarity] How do you
do?

HIGGINS [staring at her] I've seen you before somewhere. I haven't the
ghost of a notion where; but I've heard your voice. [Drearily] It
doesn't matter. You'd better sit down.

MRS. HIGGINS. I'm sorry to say that my celebrated son has no manners.
You mustn't mind him.

MISS EYNSFORD HILL [gail