Next day more poor old ladies, all eager, anxious, ineligible.

It was on the third day that the old lady in dove-colour came in, sweet
as a pressed flower in an old love-letter, dainty as a pigeon in spring.
Her white hair, the white lace of her collar, the black lace of her
mantle, her beautiful little hands in their perfect, dove-coloured
gloves, all appealed irresistibly to Michael's aesthetic sense.

"What an ideal housekeeper!" he said to himself, as he placed a chair
for her. And then an odd thrill of discomfort and shame shot through
him. This delicate, dainty old lady--he was to insult her by a form of
marriage, and then to live near her, waiting for her death? No; it was
impossible--the whole thing was impossible. He found himself in the
middle of a sentence.

"And so I fear I am already suited."

The old lady raised eyebrows as delicate as Sylvia's own.

"Hardly, I think," she said, "since your servant admitted me to an
interview with you. May I ask you one or two questions before you
finally decide against me?"

The voice was low and soft--the voice men loved in the early sixties,
before the shrill shriek became the voice of fashionable ladies.

"Certainly," Michael said. He could hardly say less, and in the tumult
of embarrassment that had swept over him, he could not for his life have
said more.

The old lady went on. "I am competent to manage a house. I can read
aloud fairly well. I am a good nurse in case of sickness; and I am
accustomed to entertain. But I gather from the amount of the salary
offered that some other duties would be required of me?"

"That's clever of her, too," Michael thought; "none of the others saw
that."

He bowed.

"Would you enlighten me," she went on, "as to the nature of the services
you would require?"

"Ah--yes--of course," he said glibly, and then stopped short.

"From your hesitation," said the old lady, with unimpaired
self-possession, "I gather that the matter involves an explanation of
some delicacy, or else--pardon the egotism--that my appearance is
personally unpleasing to you."

"No--oh, _no_," Michael said very eagerly; "on the contrary, if I may
say so, it is just because you are so--so--exactly my ideal of an old
lady, that I feel I can't go on with the business; and that's put
stupidly, so that it sounds like an insult. Please forgive me."

She looked him straight in the eyes through her gold-rimmed spectacles.

"You see, I am old enough to b