Look round at me.SOPHRONA(seeing him.)Ye Gods, I do beseech you, isn’t this Stilpho?CHREMESNo. SOPHRONADo you deny it?CHREMES(in a low voice.)Step a little this way from that door, Sophrona, if you please (pointing). Don’t you, henceforth, be calling me by that name.SOPHRONAWhy? Pray, are you not the person you always used to say you were?CHREMESHush! (pointing to his own house.) SOPHRONAWhy are you afraid about that door?CHREMES(in a low voice.)I have got a shrew of a wife shut up there. For by that name I formerly falsely called myself, in order that you might not chance indiscreetly to blab it out of doors, and then my wife, by some means or other, might come to know of it.SOPHRONAI’ faith, that’s the very reason why we, wretched creatures, have never been able to find you out here.CHREMESWell, but tell me, what business have you with that family from whose house you were coming out? Where are the ladies?Where are the ladies?: Ubi illae? literally, Where are these women? SOPHRONAAh, wretched me!CHREMESHah! What’s the matter? Are they still alive?SOPHRONAYour daughter is alive.Her poor mother died of grief.CHREMESAn unfortunate thing!SOPHRONAAs for me, being a lone old woman, in want, and unknown, I contrived, as well as I could, to get the young woman married to the young man who is master of this house (pointing).CHREMESWhat! to Antipho?SOPHRONAThe very same, I say.CHREMESWhat? Has he got two wives?SOPHRONADear no, prithee, he has only got this one.CHREMESWhat about the other one that’s called his relative?SOPHRONAWhy, this is she.CHREMESWhat is it you say?SOPHRONAIt was done on purpose, in order that her lover might be enabled to marry her without a portion.CHREMESYe Gods, by our trust in you! How often do those things come about through accident, which you couldn’t dare to hope for? On my return, I have found my daughter matched with the very person I wished, and just as I wanted;a thing that we were both using our endeavors, with the greatest earnestness, to bring about. Without any very great management on our part, by her own management, she has by herself brought this about.SOPHRONANow consider what’s to be done. The young man’s father has returned, and they say that he bears this with feelings highly offended.CHREMESThere’s no danger of that. But, by Gods and men, do take care that no one comes to know that she’s my daughter.