It would
come, no doubt, in reality to Battersby church, which wanted an organ,
for it must be all nonsense about Alethea's wishing to keep it, and
Ernest would not have a house of his own for ever so many years, and
they could never have it at the Rectory. Oh, no! Battersby church
was the only proper place for it.
Of course, they would have a grand opening, and the Bishop would
come down, and perhaps young Figgins might be on a visit to them-
she must ask Ernest if young Figgins had yet left Roughborough- he
might even persuade his grandfather, Lord Lonsford, to be present.
Lord Lonsford and the Bishop and everyone else would then compliment
her, and Dr. Wesley or Dr. Walmisley, who should preside (it did not
much matter which), would say to her, "My dear Mrs. Pontifex, I
never yet played upon so remarkable an instrument." Then she would
give him one of her very sweetest smiles and say she feared he was
flattering her, on which he would rejoin with some pleasant little
trifle about remarkable men (the remarkable man being for the moment
Ernest) having invariably had remarkable women for their mothers-
and so on and so on. The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself
is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
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