"Mr. Belford, don't listen to him when he calls me a child," she spoke up. "I am a staid married woman."
I had not, as yet, sufficiently recovered from my astonishment to venture a word, so I merely bowed, and read anew old Chaucer's glowing line.
"Yes, a child," said the Senator, "but a woman; yes, Sir, as manly a woman as you ever saw—chase a fox or shake a 'possum out of a persimmon tree. Well, I must go down town and see what's going on. Don't sit up too long, Mr. Belford. Send for Washington and he'll pull you back into the other room."
"Mrs. Estell, I was never more agreeably surprised," said I, when the Senator had taken his leave. "I expected to be tormented by an elocutionist."
"If an elocutionist is your terror, you needn't be afraid of me," she replied. "I have read to father and my husband, and that is the extent of my—shall I say, inflictions."
"Husband," I repeated. "Are you really married?"
"Surely. Why not?"
"You are so young—"
"I am not old enough to be flattered by that remark," she broke in. "Yes, I have been married two years. My husband is the State Treasurer, and is at the capital now, but will be home next week. He stays over there a good deal of the time, and I go with him once in a while, but I don't like it there. I like my old home better."
"I don't blame you for that. It must be a charming place. Have you any brothers or sisters?"