hearth-rug! But I can tell you, my dear, I was a good warrant for a
play-boy when I was your age! There wasn't a young girl, no, nor a
young man either, that I couldn't dance down if I gave my mind to it!"

Christian's response was satisfactory, and Mrs. Cantwell, moved to
give a sample of her bygone prowess, executed a hippopotamus-like hop
and shuffle among the rustling, orange beech leaves of last year.

"Polkas and Mazoorkas!" she exclaimed. "Them was all the go in my
time! Come on here, Barty, ye omadhaun! I believe I could dance you
off those long legs of yours this minute, if I was to give me mind to
it!"

Barty, thus adjured by his great-aunt, drew near. Mrs. Cantwell was
not a person to be lightly disobeyed, but his dark eyes were full of
apprehension. What might Aunt Bessie not say! She was incalculable,
terrible.

There are old people who appear to find an indemnity for their lost
youth in permitting to themselves, in dealing with later generations,
a scarifying freedom of humour in connection with subjects which once
they held sacred (for there are few souls that have not at some time
enshrined a tender emotion).

Barty had suffered before now from Aunt Bessy, and he thought that if
she made of him an offence to Miss Talbot-Lowry, he would straightway
rush into the river and drown himself. Aunt Bessy, however,
potentially Rabelaisian though she might be, was perfectly aware of
the fact that there is a time to speak and a time to keep silence.