Daily Pym

‘Poor Mr. Driver — it seems unkind to leave him all alone this evening.’ 

‘Yes,’ Miss Doggett agreed. ‘One does feel that men need company more than women do. A woman has a thousand and one little tasks in the house, and then her knitting or sewing.’

Jane, who did not seem to have these things, made no answer.

— Jane & Prudence, chapter eleven

‘But after all, he is married, isn’t he? — I mean there is a wife somewhere even if you’ve never met her. You shouldn’t really consider him as a possibility, you know. Unless she were to die, of course, that would be quite all right.’ A widower, that was what was needed if such a one could be found. A widower would do splendidly for Prudence.

— Jane and Prudence, chapter one