"It cannot be," said Mrs. Hippesley.
"What has the young lady done to make it impossible?" asked Mrs. Forrester.
"Nothing on earth," said Mrs. Thorne. "She is my special friend and is in my opinion a great deal more than worthy of my uncle Francis. Only papa, who dislikes them both, would like to make it out that the two of them are going to cut their own throats each by marrying the other. I wish papa could have heard the way in which she said that he would have to marry them,—unless the Bishop should like to come forward and perform the ceremony."
"I shall do nothing of the kind," said the Dean angrily.
"If you had heard," continued his daughter, "all that she had to say about the family name and the family property, and the family grandeur generally, you would have thought her the most becoming young woman in the country to be the future Lady Geraldine."
"I wish you wouldn't talk of it, my dear," said Mrs. Hippesley.
"We shall have to talk of it, and had better become used to it among ourselves. I don't suppose that Miss Altifiorla has invented the story out of her own head. She would not say that she was engaged to marry my uncle if it were not true."
"It's my belief," said the Dean, getting up and walking out of the room in great anger, "that Sir Francis Geraldine will never marry Miss Altifiorla."
"I don't think my brother will ever marry Miss Altifiorla," said Mrs. Dean. "He is very silly and very vicious, but I don't think he'll ever do anything so bad as that."
"Poor Miss Altifiorla!" said Mrs. Thorne afterwards to her Aunt Forrester.