"I know," said Nellie sympathetically. "That's your way. But you should try to be a little selfish sometimes."
"You are quite right, Nellie; we must think of our own interests. I have wasted far too much time bothering about Aunt Sophy, Kezia, Bessie—"
"And me!!" cried Nellie. "Do let me come in somewhere."
"Not with them. You come in a class by yourself."
"The fourth," she murmured.
"As Aunt Sophy is so good and religious we cannot want her to live on, knowing how much happier she will be in the next world; and then I can settle down as the big man of Highfield—quite the biggest man in the place, and I hope the most respectable. Mr. and Mrs. George Drake, of Windward House, in the parish of Highfield and county of Devon, Esquire, as the lawyers say."
"How unkind! You introduce Mrs. Drake, and then ignore her. You married her at one end of your sentence and divorced her, for no fault whatever, at the other end."
"Married ladies are not credited with separate existences," explained George.
"They generally insist upon taking one."
"By lawyers, I mean. They are not distinct entities like spinsters and widows."