You are as nice as Thackeray _thought_ they were, poor mistaken man.

I am not going to suffuse you with blushes by explaining to you that there is what my nephew would call a jolly good reason why, if you were not an early Victorian and improved Thackerayian saint, you would not be best pleased at finding yourself called upon to assist at this interesting occasion.

Another kind of woman would probably feel like a cat towards the little Osborn.
But even the mere reason itself, as a reason, has not once risen in your benign and pellucid mind.

You have a pellucid mind, Emily; I should be rather proud of the word if I had invented it myself to describe you.
But I didn't.

It was Walderhurst.