But I understand that you don't like either of them." "No, not particularly--especially Eliza Layard, who isn't a lady, and has a vicious temper--nor any young woman whom I have ever met." "Do you mean to tell me candidly, Morris, that at your age you detest women ?" "I don't say that; I only say that I never met one to whom I felt much attracted, and that I have met a great many by whom I was repelled." "Decidedly, Morris, in you the strain of the ancestral fish is too predominant.

It isn't natural; it really isn't.

You ought to have been born three centuries ago, when the old monks lived here.

You would have made a first-class abbot, and might have been canonised by now.

Am I to understand, then, that you absolutely decline to marry ?" "No, father; I don't want you to understand anything of the sort.