What nonsense people talk! If
any pretty girl about Crompton was to take a fancy to _you_ now, as is
like enough, do you suppose--"
"But I thought you said that Mrs. Charles Carew was not a girl?"
"Nor more she was: she was five-and-thirty if she was a day; and
yet--_there_ was the wonder of it--she did not look much over twenty!
I've heard our gentlemen, when out shooting, liken her to some fine
Frenchwoman as never grew old, and was fell in love with unbeknown by
her grandson. Now, what was her name? I got it written down somewhere in
my old pocket-book; it was summut like Longclothes."
"_Ninon de l'Enclos?_" suggested Yorke, without a smile.
"Ay, that's the name. Well, Mrs. Charles Carew, as you call her, was
just like her, and a regular everlasting! She was not what you would
call pretty, but very "taking" looking, and with a bloom and freshness
on her as would have deceived any man. Her voice was like music itself,
and she moved like a stag o' ten; and the Squire being always manly
looking and swarthy, like yourself, there was really little difference
between them to look at. I dare say she's gone all to pieces now, as
women will do, while the Squire looks much the same as he did then."
"I have never even seen him," said the landscape-painter, moodily.
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