"Several times," says I, with sarcastic forbearance. "My father had a book of that kind, which he sometimes opened."
She could not understand the delicate irony of this answer; but pressed forward like an old camp-meetinger as she was.
"Did that good father never read of a place where a drop of water could not be found to cool a certain person's tongue?" says she. "If not, your paternal ancestor fell short of his duty. It is no wonder his child should have gone half through life without a ray of saving grace, and with a white feather in her hat."
Sisters, I was riled. "Half through life," says I. "Madam, do you know how old I am?"
She looked at me half a minute, with all the eyes in her head; then, with the cool air of a woman counting money, said, "about for—"
Sisters, I cannot repeat the audacious falsehood of that creature's calculation. It was enough to rile up venom in the heart of a born cherubim. If ever a fiend took the disguise of a sugar-scoop bonnet, I have encountered one. A heart of stone lay under the innocent folds of that muslin half-shawl.
"Madam," said I, with a look of overpowering indignation, "you must have begun and ended your arithmetic in multiplication. Take off half of the years you have mentioned."
The woman smiled so knowingly, that I longed to— Well, no matter, she smiled, and says she:
"At any rate, you are not too old for the mercy-seat."
"I should think not," says I.