LAURA: I feel so ashamed of being pushed at strangers.

AMANDA: You wouldn’t have to be pushed if you weren’t such a shrinking violet of a girl, more old-fashioned than I am! I don’t know how you do it, but you’re eighteen and never been out with a boy! Never out with one even. If you were an awkward, homely, stupid girl, that would be natural, Laura. But you’re like a young green tree that’s beginning to flower, and is it so evil to have somebody look at you?

LAURA: You make it seem so important. That’s why I’m nervous about it.

AMANDA: Well, it might be important, you can never tell. I’m not only the practical member of this family, but the romantic one, too . . .

LAURA: What has romance got to do with this boy coming over?

AMANDA: Nothing if you’re a nit-wit! Nothing if you’re just going to sit there with your teeth in your mouth, like you did the night that I took you over to the Young People’s league at the church, speaking to nobody so nobody spoke to you! Your sort of prettiness can’t be depended on, Laura. It might go out as quickly as it came and leave you stranded in this little apartment. I put you in business college, worked like a trooper so I could pay the tuition. What did you do? Claimed it made you nervous, and so you quit.

LAURA: I’m always being pushed into something, something I don’t want.

AMANDA: What do you want, then? Tell me.

LAURA: To be left alone. I’d like to live by myself.

AMANDA: Two courses are open to girls in your circumstances. Either they have a business career or get married. And I’ve given up on you ever getting a job!

LAURA: Well, give up on getting me a husband, too.

AMANDA: All right, very well, then. I won’t live forever to make provisions for you. You’ll wind up one of those—barely tolerated spinsters who live with their brothers’ families and eat the crust of humility all their lives! That’s the future you cut out for yourself when you take no advantage of anything done for you.

[Laura bursts into tears. She runs out of the room.]

LAURA [calling back]: I’m going into my room and I won’t come out. I won’t come out for dinner. And you can have the gentleman caller yourself!