"In yourself?" asked Nellie gently. "In Aunt Sophy. I--I don't much like to be made fun of, Nellie." "I was trying to cheer you up, as this is not Miss Sophy's funeral. Don't worry about the dear lady; she is perfectly well and thoroughly happy; her health has been much better since we came to Highfield; and I shall be quite astonished if she doesn't live another twenty years. She is a great admirer of the giant tortoise--" "He's over five hundred years old," cried George in anguish. "That makes Miss Yard the smallest kind of infant." "If she lives another two years, I must give her notice. I cannot have her upsetting all my plans--though I quite agree with you she is a dear old lady." "Plan number two!" cried Nellie. "That concerns myself," said George. "You should have been number one," she said reproachfully. "I had to put Aunt Sophy first, because I cannot arrange my own future while she occupies the house. I don't want to say too much about myself." "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." "I see: while I am single I have a personality, when I marry I lose it, when I am a widow I regain it. You could not have improved upon that sentence." "Why not?" asked George. "In its repetition of the most important letter in the alphabet. Now for plan number three." "But I have said nothing about myself yet!" cried George. "Don't try. You are finding it very disagreeable, I am sure; and after all I can guess. This house ought to be converted into a mansion, and you mean to do it. This village sadly needs a squire, resident magistrate, pillar of uprightness; and you fully intend to supply that want." George nodded, and hoped she would go on talking like that, blinking after the fashion of a tomcat who has just enjoyed a bowl of cream.