The painter darted a look at her, flushed, and began to fidget in his chair.
“Sir Peter Hardacre, madam?”
“Yes, sir. I thought I remembered seeing the picture—”
Richard Wilson adjusted his wig, and drank down a glass of wine.
“I believe I did, madam—I believe I did,” he said.
“Dear Sir Peter; he must have made such an aristocratic study! I think I must really ask you to honor me with a sitting, Mr. Wilson.”
The painter blinked, and then bowed low across the table. He appeared glad in measure to escape the subject, nor was his discomfort lost upon the Lady Letitia.
“I shall be proud, madam, proud,” he said; “the honor is on my side, madam. I shall be proud to paint Richard Jeffray’s grandmother—pardon me, madam—aunt, I mean. Upon my word, madam, you look extraordinarily young to have so old a nephew.”
Aunt Letitia, not in the least disturbed by the painter’s slip, received his clumsy apologies and awkward apings of flattery with infinite good humor.
“La, Mr. Wilson,” she said, frankly, “I am an old woman, and, thank God, I know it. I think it is a pitiful sight, sir, to see an old woman frittering away the solemn and awful years of age in folly, when she should be preparing herself to meet her Maker.”