Mrs. Thompson smiled, and her lips were quite tremulous.
"Another woman, Yates? What sort of woman do I look like now?"
"A very handsome one," said Yates affectionately. "And more like the girl Mr. Thompson led up the stairs such a long time ago—the first time I ever set eyes on her, and was thinking however she and I would get on together."
"We've got on well together, haven't we, Yates?"
"That we have," said Yates, with enthusiasm.
"Yates, don't stare so;" and Mrs. Thompson laughed. "You make me nervous. And I don't want you to flatter me.... But tell me, candidly, supposing you met me now as a stranger—how old would you guess I was?"
Yates, with her head slightly on one side, scrutinized her mistress very critically.
"Why, I don't believe that anyone seeing you as I do now would take you for more than forty-two—at the outside."
"Forty-two! Three years less than my real age. Thank you for nothing, Yates." Mrs. Thompson laughed, but with little merriment in her laugh. "You haven't joined my band of flatterers. You have given me an honest answer."
Perhaps, if some faint doubt was lingering in Mrs. Thompson's mind, Yates had provided an answer to that as well as to the direct question.