For all that, she felt competent to declare that Allan was the only possible husband for her niece, and her niece came to suspect that this might be so.
When at last she had wondered herself into a state of inward readiness--a state still governed by her outward habit of resistance, this last was beaten down by a letter from Mrs.Tednick, who had been a school friend as Clara Tremaine, and was now married, apparently with results not too desirable.
"Never, my dear," ran the letter to Nancy, "permit yourself to think of marrying a man who has not a sense of humour.

Do I seem flippant?
Don't think it.

I am conveying to you the inestimable benefits of a trained observation.

Humour saves a man from being impossible in any number of ways--from boring you to beating you.

(You may live to realise that the tragedy of _the first_ is not less poignant than that of the second.) Whisper, dear!--All men are equally vain--at least in their ways with a woman--but humour assuredly preserves many unto death from betraying it egregiously.