"Her? Oh"—and Laura squeezed herself desperately for the details that WOULD not come—"oh, why she's just a perfect old ... old cat. And twenty years older than him."
"What on earth did he marry her for?"
"Guess he's pretty sick of being tied to an old gin like that?"
"I should say! Perfectly MISERABLE. He can't think now why he let himself be induced to marry her. He just despises her."
"Well, why in the name of all that's holy did he take her?"
Laura cast a mysterious glance round, and lowered her voice. "Well, you see, she had LOTS of money and he had none. He was ever so poor. And she paid for him to be a clergyman."
"Go on! As poor as all that?"
"As poor as a church-mouse.—But, oh," she hastened to add, at the visible cooling-off of the four faces, "he comes of a MOST distinguished family. His father was a lord or a baronet or something like that, but he married a beautiful girl who hadn't a penny against his father's will and so he cut him out of his will."
"I say!"
"Oh, never mind the father."