poem when I was a girl. I read poetry then. You wouldn't have imagined
that. I did, and liked it. I hate old age. It changes you so. None of
my children know me as I was when I had life in me and was myself, and my
brother Rowsley called me Cooey. They think me a hard old woman. I was
Cooey through the woods and over the meadows and down stream to Rowsley.
Old age is a prison wall between us and young people. They see a
miniature head and bust, and think it a flattery--won't believe it.
After I married I came to understand that the world we are in is a world
to fight in, or under we go. But I pity the young who have to cast
themselves off and take up arms. Young women above all.'

Why had she no pity for Aminta? Weyburn asked it of his feelings, and he
had the customary insurgent reply from them.

'You haven't seen Steignton yet,' she continued. 'No place on earth is
equal to Steignton for me. It 's got the charm. Here at Olmer I'm a
mother and a grandmother--the "devil of an old-woman" my neighbours take
me to be. She hasn't been to Steignton, either. No, and won't go there,
though she's working her way round, she supposes. He'll do everything
for his "Aminta," but he won't take her to Steignton. I'm told now she's
won Lady de Culme. That Mrs. Lawrence Finclhley has dropped the curtsey
to her great-aunt and sworn to be a good girl, for a change, if Lady de
Culme will do the chaperon, and force Lord Ormont's hand. My brother
shrugs. There'll be a nice explosion one day soon. Presented? The
Court won't have her. That I know for positive. If she's pushed
forward, she 'll be bitterly snubbed. It 's on the heads of those women
--silly women! I can't see the game Mrs. Lawrence Finchley's playing.
She'd play for fun. If they'd come to me, I 'd tell them I 've proof
she 's not the Countess of Ormont: positive proof. You look? I have it.
I hold something; and not before,--(he may take his Aminta to Steignton,