Austin," I replied. "To be more than half a hundred years old! It is so
many years to live; and then to be such a sinner, too--how hard it must
be! I always thought you were very good before; and I am sure you are
not gray and wrinkled and blear-eyed, like Granny Simpson!"
"Granny Simpson, indeed! You must be crazy, Miriam Monfort! Why, she is
eighty if she is an hour, and hobbles on a cane! I flatter myself I am
not infirm yet; and, if you call a well-preserved, middle-aged, English
woman, like me, _old_, your brains must be addled. Look at my hair, my
teeth, my complexion"--pausing suddenly before me and confronting me
fiercely. "See my step, my figure, and have more sense, if you _are_ a
little foreign Jewish child. As to sinfulness, we are all _sinful_
beings, more or less. To be _wicked_ is a very different thing from
sinful. I never told you I was wicked, child. What put that into your
head?"
"Oh, I thought they were the same thing. Which is the worst, Mrs.
Austin?" I asked, with unfeigned simplicity.
"There, Miriam, step on before! you walk too fast anyhow for me to-day.
Besides, your tongue wags too limberly by half. You always did ask queer
questions, and will to your dying day. No help for it, I suppose, but
patience; but it is all of that Gipsy blood! Now, Evelyn's line of
people was altogether different.
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