t. I
am seventy.'

The effect of this noble frankness on the General, was to raise him from
his chair in a sitting posture as if he had been blown up.

Her countenance was inexorably imperturbable under his alternate
blinking and gazing that drew her close and shot her distant, like a
mysterious toy.

'But,' said she, 'I am an artist; I dislike the look of extreme age,
so I conceal it as well as I can. You are very kind to fall in with the
deception: an innocent and, I think, a proper one, before the world,
though not to the gentleman who does me the honour to propose to me
for my hand. You desire to settle our business first. You esteem me; I
suppose you mean as much as young people mean when they say they love.
Do you? Let us come to an understanding.'

'I can,' the melancholy General gasped, 'I say I can--I cannot--I cannot
credit your ladyship's...'

'You are at liberty to call me Angela.'

'Ange...' he tried it, and in shame relapsed. 'Madam, yes. Thanks.'

'Ah,' cried Lady Camper, 'do not use these vulgar contractions of
decent speech in my presence. I abhor the word "thanks." It is fit for
fribbles.'

'Dear me, I have used it all my life,' groaned the General.

'Then, for the remainder, be it understood that you renounce it. To
continue, my age is...'

'Oh, impossible, impossible,' the General almost wailed; there was
really a crack in his voice.

'Advancing to seventy. But, like you, I am happy to say I have not
a malady. I bring no invalid frame to a union that necessitates the
leaving of the front door open day and night to the doctor. My belief
is, I could follow my husband still on a campaign, if he were a warrior
instead of a pensioner.'

General Ople winced.

He was about to say humbly, 'As General of Brigade...'

'Yes, yes, you want a commanding officer, and that I have seen, and that
has caused me to meditate on your proposal,' she interrupted him; while
he, studying her countenance hard, with the painful aspect of a youth
who lashes a donkey memory in an examination by word of mouth, attempted
to marshal her signs of younger years against her awful confession of
the extremely ancient, the witheringly ancient. But for the manifest
rouge, manifest in spite of her declaration that she had not yet that
morning proceeded to her paintbrush, he would have thrown down his glove
to challenge her on the subject of her age. She had actually charms. Her
mouth had a charm; her eyes were lively; he