No one in Polchester had learnt yet to cycle in rational costume, it was several years before the publication of "The Heavenly Twins," and Mr.Trollope's Lilys and Lucys were still considered the ideal of England's maidenhood.
Mrs.Cole, therefore, had to choose between idiotic young women and crabbed old maids, and she finally chose an old maid.

I don't think that Miss Jones was the very best choice that she could have made, but time was short.

Jeremy, aided by Hamlet, was growing terribly independent, and Mr.Cole had neither the humour nor the courage to deal with him.
No, Miss Jones was not ideal, but the Dean had strongly recommended her.
It is true that the Dean had never seen her, but her brother, with whom she had lived for many years, had once been the Dean's curate.

It was true that he had been a failure as a curate, but that made the Dean the more anxious to be kind now to his memory, he--Mr.Jones--having just died of general bad-temper and selfishness.
Miss Jones, buried during the last twenty years in the green depths of a Glebeshire valley, found herself now, at the age of fifty, without friends, without money, without relations.

She thought that she would be a governess.
The Dean recommended her, Mrs.Cole approved of her birth, education and sobriety, Mr.Cole liked the severity of her countenance when she came to call, and she was engaged.
"Jeremy needs a tight hand," said Mr.Cole.