donness

— Tom—to use one of his own expressions—shook his feathers and pulled himself together when Philip came in, and, smoking away in earnest, seemed to take the greatest possible interest in the rector's recollections of the dean's dinner and the after "evening," at which Ethel came out so very brilliantly, that she extinguished all the Deanesses and Donesses, or whatever the helpmates of the solemn old pumps who frequent cathedral towns are called. We are quoting Tom's words.