, really," says Mrs. Darley, with a pretty childish laugh which
she rather cultivates, being under the impression that it is
fascinating to the last degree, "asking me so suddenly puts the precise
day I was born out of my head. I hardly remember--exactly--when----"

Conversation has died. Every one's attention is fixed; by experience
they know the end is nigh.

"Just so; I don't suppose you could, it happened such a long time ago!"
says this terrible old man, with an audible chuckle, that falls upon a
silent and (must it be said?) appreciative audience.

Mrs. Darley says no more; what is there left to say? and conversation
is once more taken up, and flows on as smoothly as it can, when
everybody else is talking for a purpose.

"_Is_ she old?" Molly asks Philip, presently, in a low tone, when
the buzz is at its highest; "very old, I mean? She looks so babyish."

"How old would you say?" speaking in the same guarded tone as her own,
which has the effect of making Luttrell and Marcia believe them deep in
a growing flirtation.

"About twenty-two or three."

"She does it uncommonly well then," says Philip, regarding Mrs. Darley
with much admiration,--"uncommonly well; her maid must be a treasure."

"But why? Is she older than that?"

"I don't know, I am sure," says Philip, unkindly, with an amused smile.
"She used to be my age, but I haven't the faintest idea in the world
what she is--now!"

After one or two more playful sallies on the part of their host,--for
having once found his tongue he takes very good care to use it, and
appears fatally bent on making his hearers well aware of its
restoration,--the ladies adjourn to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Darley
instantly retires behind her handkerchief and gives way to a gentle
sob.

"That detestable old man!" she says, viciously; "how I hate him! What
have I done, that he should treat me with such exceeding rudeness? One
would think I was as old as--as--Methuselah! Not that his mentioning my
age puts me out in the least,--why should it?--only his manner is so
offensive!"

And as she finishes she rolls up the corners of her handkerchief into a
little point, and carefully picks out, one by one, the two tears that
adorn her eyes, lest by any chance they should escape, and, running
down her cheeks, destroy the evening's painting.

"Don't distress yourself about it, Maud," says Lady Stafford, kindly,
although strongly divided between pity for the angry Maud and a gro