How Do I Stop Mail Marking a Message As Read When Another Has Been Deleted?

Is there a way to stop Mail marking a message as Read just because it has the focus after an adjacent message has been deleted?
There is nothing in the Mail Preferences that seems relevant.
I like to skim through unread messages and delete those of no interest. However, this results in Mail marking other messages as Read (that I have not and want to read later) because of the deletions.
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Eric