"It is not at all a bad idea," Mrs. Errington said, graciously.
"But then he wouldn't just take the first ugly woman as had a fort'n."
"Oh dear no!"
"No; nor yet an old 'un."
"Good gracious, man! of course not!"
"Young, pretty, good, and a bit o' money. That's about his mark, eh?"
Mrs. Errington shook her head pathetically. "She ought to have birth, too," she said. "But the woman takes her husband's rank; unless," she added, correcting herself, and with much emphasis, "unless she happens to be the better born of the two."
"Oh, she does, eh? The woman takes her husband's rank? Ah! well, that's script'ral. I have never troubled my head about these vain worldly distinctions; but that is script'ral."
Mrs. Errington was not there to discuss her landlord's opinions or to listen to them; but he served as well as another to be the recipient of her talk about Algernon, which accordingly she resumed, and indulged in ever-higher flights of boasting. Her mendacity, like George Wither's muse,
As it made wing, so it made power.