“Go to school? How can she? There is no school fit for her within fifty miles of this place.”
“Certainly not. She must be sent away to a first-class boarding-school.”
“I cannot consent to that, Aunt Agrippina. I cannot, and will not. I cannot part with her. Besides, it would break her heart to send her away.”
“Fiddle!” said Miss Grip.
“Yet I see that she should have instruction. I will advertise for a first-class resident governess.”
“You will not do any such thing, Colonel Marcellus de Crespigney! A resident governess in the house, indeed! Why, she would marry you in six months!”
“Absurd!” indignantly exclaimed the colonel.
“Oh, yes, you may call it ‘absurd,’ if you like! But I know you, Marcellus! Any needy woman, any single woman, I mean, young or old, plain or pretty, shut up in the same house with you, would marry you out of hand!”
“You must think me a very weak man,” said the colonel.
“I do,” said Miss Grip.