"Oh, Cyril!"
"Well, and why not? It is not impossible. Even Popes, it now appears, can be indifferent to the advantages to be derived from soap and water."
"Really, Cyril, I think you might choose a pleasanter subject upon which to converse," says Florence, with a disgusted curl of her short upper lip.
"I beg pardon all round, I'm sure," returns Cyril, meekly. "But Lilian should be blamed: she would investigate the matter; and I'm nothing, if not strictly truthful. He was a very dirty old man, I assure you, my dear Florence."
"Mrs. Boileau, however objectionable, seems to have been rather the best of the two: why did she marry him?" asks Lilian.
"Haven't the remotest idea, and, even if I had, I should be afraid to answer any more of your pertinent questions," with an expressive nod in the direction of Florence. "I can only say it was a very feeble proceeding on the part of such a capable person as Mrs. Boileau."
"Just 'another good woman gone wrong,'" suggests Taffy, mildly.
"Quite so," says Archibald, "though she adored him,—she said. Yet he died, some said of fever, others of—Mrs. Boileau; no attention was ever paid to the others. When he did droop and die she planted all sorts of lovely little flowers over his grave, and watered them with her tears for ever so long. Could affection farther go?"
"Horrible woman!" says Miss Chesney, "it only wanted that to finish my dislike to her. I hope when I am dead no one will plant flowers on my grave: the bare idea would make me turn in it."
"Then we won't do it," says Taffy, consolingly.