“What!” cried her uncle; “I suppose you expected a black fire and impertinent apologies by way of substitute for warmth; a stuffy room, and damp sheets, roasted, like a woodcock, twenty minutes before use.”
“No, uncle, dear, I expected every comfort at Font Abbey.” Brown retired with a courtesy.
“Aha! What! you have found out that it is all humbug about old bachelors not knowing comfort? Do bachelors ever put their friends into damp sheets? No; that is the women's trick with their household science. Your sex have killed more men with damp sheets than ever fell by the sword.”
“Yet nobody erects monuments to us,” put in Lucy, slyly.
She missed fire. Uncle Fountain, like most Englishmen, could take in a pun by the ear, but wit only by the eye. “Do you remember when Mrs. Bazalgette put you into the linen sponge, and killed you?”
“Killed me?”
“Certainly, as far as in her lay. We can but do our best; well, she did hers, and went the right way to work.”
“You see I survive.”
“By a miracle. Dinner is at six.”
“Very well, dear.”