When we say that we are getting old, we should say rather that
we are getting new or young, and are suffering from inexperience; trying
to do things which we have never done before, and failing worse and
worse, till in the end we are landed in the utter impotence of death."
Miss Pontifex died many a long year before the above passage was written,
but she had arrived independently at much the same conclusion.
She first, therefore, squared the boys. Dr Skinner was even more easily
dealt with. He and Mrs Skinner called, as a matter of course, as soon as
Miss Pontifex was settled. She fooled him to the top of his bent, and
obtained the promise of a MS. copy of one of his minor poems (for Dr
Skinner had the reputation of being quite one of our most facile and
elegant minor poets) on the occasion of his first visit. The other
masters and masters' wives were not forgotten. Alethea laid herself out
to please, as indeed she did wherever she went, and if any woman lays
herself out to do this, she generally succeeds.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Miss Pontifex soon found out that Ernest did not like games, but she saw
also that he could hardly be expected to like them.
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