ACT III

Act III takes place in the drawing room, where Cecily and Gwendolen are. When Jack and Algernon tell Gwendolen and Cecily that they have both want to be christened as Ernest that afternoon, all is forgiven. At this moment, Lady Bracknell arrives following his daughter. She is surprised by Algernon and Cecily’s engaged. However, she still refuses her daughter’s marriage.

But when Miss Prism appears Lady Bracknell recognizes the governess, twenty-eight years earlier she took her sister’s baby boy for a walk and never returned. Miss Prism explains that she had left the baby at Victoria Station. Then Jack realizes that he is that baby, therefore he is Algernon’s older brother and Gwendolen’s cousin. He also discovers that his father's name, his own real name, was Ernest.

Again the couples embrace and Jack acknowledges that he now understands “the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”