"I don't think I do," murmured Mrs. Sheldon. "Please be more explicit."
"I will. Mrs. Sheldon, I am a man of few words, and you may think me abrupt. Will you deign to accept that which your niece has rejected? Will you be my wife?"
Mrs. Sheldon had not dreamed of marrying again, but she was a woman, and accessible to flattery. She admired the major; she knew that he was considered a catch, and though she did not love him, she reflected with exultation that it would be a great triumph for her to carry off the prize for which so many had sought.
"You surprise me very much, Major Ashton," she said. "I did not dream of this."
"But it is not disagreeable to you, let me hope?"
"I am of course flattered by your preference, but I am as old as the hills. Are you aware, Major Ashton, that I shall soon be forty-one?"
"She's fifty-one if she's a day!" thought the enamored lover; and he was right.
"You are at the meridian of your beauty, dear Mrs. Sheldon," he said, taking her unresisting hand.
"I am older than you."
"Not much. I am thirty-eight."