I had a proposal at last , after waiting sixty-four years for one . `` I just glared at that presumptuous creature and I said , ' I would not marry you if you were the last man on earth , Josiah Pryor . So there you have my answer and you can take it away forthwith . ' You never saw a man so taken aback as he was , Mrs. Dr. dear . He was so flabbergasted that he just blurted out the truth . ` Why , I thought you 'd be only too glad to get a chance to be married , ' he said . That was when I lost my head , Mrs. Dr. dear . Do you think I had a good excuse , when a Hun and a pacifist made such an insulting remark to me ? ` Go , ' I thundered , and I just caught up that iron pot . I could see that he thought I had suddenly gone insane , and I suppose he considered an iron pot full of boiling dye was a dangerous weapon in the hands of a lunatic . At any rate he went , and stood not upon the order of his going , as you saw for yourself . And I do not think we will see him back here proposing to us again in a hurry . No , I think he has learned that there is at least one single woman in Glen St. Mary who has no hankering to become Mrs. Whiskers-on-the-moon . '' CHAPTER XXVII WAITING Ingleside , 1st November 1917 `` It is November -- and the Glen is all grey and brown , except where the Lombardy poplars stand up here and there like great golden torches in the sombre landscape , although every other tree has shed its leaves . It has been very hard to keep our courage alight of late . The Caporetto disaster is a dreadful thing and not even Susan can extract much consolation out of the present state of affairs . The rest of us do n't try . Gertrude keeps saying desperately , ` They must not get Venice -- they must not get Venice , ' as if by saying it often enough she can prevent them . But what is to prevent them from getting Venice I can not see . Yet , as Susan fails not to point out , there was seemingly nothing to prevent them from getting to Paris in 1914 , yet they did not get it , and she affirms they shall not get Venice either .
Oh , how I hope and pray they will not -- XXXXX the beautiful Queen of the Adriatic .
Gertrude Glen Mary Paris Pryor Susan Venice XXVII disaster poplars