"I go beyond that," said the Dean, "and maintain that any single life would be preferable to a marriage with Miss Altifiorla."
"Considering that she is my friend, papa, I think that you are very unkind."
"But who is to be the gentleman?" asked her mother.
"Ah! there's the question! Why don't you guess?" Then Mrs. Dean did name three or four of the most unpromising unmarried elderly gentlemen in Exeter, and the Dean, in that spirit of satire against his own order which is common among clergymen, suggested an old widowed Minor Canon, who was in the habit of chanting the Litany. "You are none of you near the mark. You ought to come nearer home."
"Nearer home?" said Mrs. Dean with a look of discomfort in her face.
"Yes, mamma. A great deal nearer home."
"It can't be your Uncle Septimus," said the Dean. Now Uncle Septimus was the unmarried brother of old Mr. Thorne, and was regarded by all the Thorne family as a perfect model of an unselfish, fine old lovable gentleman.
"Good gracious, no!" said Mrs. Thorne. "What a horrible idea! Fancy Uncle Septimus doomed to pass his life in company with Miss Altifiorla! The happy man in question is—Sir Francis Geraldine."
"No!" said Mrs. Hippesley, jumping from her seat.
"It is impossible," said the Dean, who, though he greatly disliked his brother-in-law, still thought something of the family into which he had married, and thoroughly despised Miss Altifiorla. "I do not think that Sir Francis could be so silly as that."