"No, I don't."

"There, now, you are one of those horrid creatures, I know you are, who
never _will_ understand, and do it on purpose. It is so aggravating."

"Well, but you said he was not a gentleman, and yet that he was a
gentleman."

"You _are_ provoking. I say he is a gentleman--but don't some gentlemen
keep a carriage?--and his father is in business. Isn't that plain? You
know all about it as well as I do."

"I still do not quite comprehend."

Catharine took a little pleasure in forcing people to be definite, and
Miss Arden invariably fell back on "you understand" whenever she herself
did not understand. In fact, in exact proportion to her own inability to
make herself clear to herself, did she always insist that she was clear
to other people.

"I cannot help it if you don't comprehend. He's lovely, and I adore
him."

Next morning, being Sunday, the Limes was, if possible, still more
irreproachable; the noise of the household was more subdued; the passions
appeared more utterly extinguished, and any indifferent observer would
have said that from the Misses Ponsonby down to the scullery-maid, a big
jug had been emptied on every spark of illegal fire, and blood was toast
and water. Alas! it was not so. The boots were cleaned overnight to
avoid Sunday labour, but when the milkman came, a handsome young fellow,
anybody with ears near the window overhead might have detected a
scuffling at the back door with some laughter and something like "Oh,
don't!" and might have noticed that Elizabeth afterwards looked a little
rumpled and adjusted her cap. Nor was she singular, for many of the
young women who were supposed to be studying a brief abstract of the
history of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, in parallel columns, as
arranged by the Misses Ponsonby, were indulging in the naughtiest
thoughts and using naughty words as they sat in their bedrooms before the
time for departure to church. At a quarter-past ten the girls assembled
in the dining-room, and were duly marshalled. They did not, however,
walk two-and-two like ordinary schools. In the first place, many of them
were not children, and, in the second place, the Misses Ponsonby held
that even walking to church was a thing to be taught, and they desired to
turn out their pupils so that they might distinguish themselves in this
art also as well-bred people. It was one of the points on which the
Misses Ponsonby grew even eloquent. How, they said,