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].