Simeon Ponsonby—the professor of botany at Harmouth—had married when over forty the eldest daughter of a distinguished though impecunious family in his own college town. His mother, on her deathbed, foresaw that he would need a housekeeper and suggested the match.
"Simeon," she said, "it isn't for us to question the Lord's ways, but I am mortally sorry to leave you, my son; it is hard for a man to shift for himself. I was thinking...
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