I think of it as I picture the dowager to myself, so fearfully and wonderfully made, and I confess to a chaste admiration for those old belles of society and their nepenthe of cosmetics, bringing down to us a sort of Hallow-e'en summer dressed in the quaint phraseology of an elder period. I do protest against those jejune satirists who hold them up to ridicule, forsooth! because unique and like themselves, and true, because always like themselves, to the latest lapse of affectation. Let us be sure, however quaintly the lacquer be laid on, there is real porcelain below in these reserves of old china, which we affectedly call sham only because it differs in texture and ornament from the delft cast in a common mould.
The dowager was all vivacity, looking lightly on those limber heels age is so wont to decry, but alert, sensitively conscious of that pedestal of affected juvenescence, and bold with that old pioneer blood of hers that needs but a scratch to show the cruel, revengeful Indian fighter below.
Silly Bob Nettles was romping by with Sudie—promenade all, around the porches, through the hall, and back to their places. The dowager had but time to intimate, "The young gentleman with Sue—Mr. Nettles, is it?—isn't he rather free?" and Mr. Brown to feel it rather, when they came by. Sue's hair was down, her eyes bright, cheeks flushed, her lips bubbling with laughter; and that unlucky Bob was singing,
"When we are young we are careless and happy,
But when we get old we are hairless and cappy."
One flash of those awful eyes told him the dowager had made an application of his silly and thoughtless words. Relieved from his partner, he stole off to the dressing-room to think.
He found Warrener and Wylde Payne there, and presently he began to tell "what a confounded mess he had made of it down stairs."
Mason had been charged by the angry woman with the disagreeable duty of ordering Bob Nettles to leave the house. Selfish, but good-natured, Mason by no means liked the task, and on a favorable opportunity would have softened it probably into a warning. But the temptation to vapor a little when he found his rival down was too much for him. "I call it confounded shabby," said he—"a lady of Aunt Fanny's age and character!"
"You are a relation," said Bob anxiously and not at all offended. "I wish you'd just say to Mrs. Brown I meant nothing. It was just chaff and nonsense, and I never meant anything."
"Chaff, indeed!" said Mason, egged on by Payne's and Warrener's open grins. "I think it confounded blackguardly, and you ought to be kicked out," ruffling like a cock-turkey with trailed wings.
"Go for him, Lind!" laughed Payne, "but remember the four Dutchmen and be merciful."