"Well, well. I do not like the stupid fashions of today. You
are very good looking. I should have fallen in love with you if
I had been a man. Why do you not get married? It is time now
that I was going. I want to walk, yet I always have to ride. Are
you still in a bad temper?" she added to the General.

"No, indeed," rejoined the now mollified General.

"I quite understand that at your time of life--"

"Cette vieille est tombee en enfance," De Griers whispered to
me.

"But I want to look round a little," the old lady added to the
General. Will you lend me Alexis Ivanovitch for the purpose?

"As much as you like. But I myself--yes, and Polina and Monsieur
de Griers too--we all of us hope to have the pleasure of
escorting you."

"Mais, madame, cela sera un plaisir," De Griers commented with
a bewitching smile.

"'Plaisir' indeed! Why, I look upon you as a perfect fool,
monsieur." Then she remarked to the General: "I am not going to
let you have any of my money. I must be off to my rooms now, to
see what they are like. Afterwards we will look round a little.
Lift me up."

Again the Grandmother was borne aloft and carried down the