“The mind,” pursued Mrs. Wilfer in an oratorical manner, “naturally reverts to Papa and Mamma⁠—I here allude to my parents⁠—at a period before the earliest dawn of this day. I was considered tall; perhaps I was. Papa and Mamma were unquestionably tall. I have rarely seen a finer woman than my mother; never than my father.”

The irrepressible Lavvy remarked aloud, “Whatever grandpapa was, he wasn’t a female.”