"Age before beauty!" is a motto somewhat popular, so the Colonel has had the preference. Frank Wallace, proprietor of a small but thriving job-printing establishment before spoken of, and would-be proprietor of the heart and hand of Miss Emily Owen--was altogether a different style of man from the puissant Colonel. As he lounged at the window in his suit of loose-fitting gray Melton, he looked very young indeed and created rather the impression of a "little fellow." He probably fell at least three or four inches short of the romantic six feet, in reality; but was the owner of a fine erect and well-rounded gymnastic form, not a little improved by frequent visits to the Seventh Regiment Gymnasium. A jolly round face with very fair complexion, a merry blue eye, short, curly brown hair and a full moustache somewhat darker,--made up the ensemble of the particular person destined to be the torment of Judge Owen--and of others. For Frank Wallace, be it understood, had other penchants besides his attachment to pretty Emily--fun being the other and leading propensity. He was a capital mimic, an incorrigible banterer, and in any other company than that of the woman he loved, and her family, the merriest and most jocular soul alive. Sometimes when alone with her, and with the "spooniness" which will attach to male courtship before twenty-five, fairly shaken off, he could be a gay, dashing and even a presuming lover. Just now he was unamiable--not to say wicked, and ready for any use of his glib tongue which could send the blue coat out of the house at "double-quick."
It could not have been malice--it certainly must have been want of thought--that induced Aunt Martha to break the temporary silence with the remark, addressed to the Colonel:
"It is a funny question I am going to ask, I know, Colonel, but I suppose I have an old woman's privilege. Mrs. Owen and myself were talking about ages a day or two ago, and she thought you were more than thirty-five. How old _are_ you?"
If half a paper of pins, with all the points upward, had suddenly made their appearance in the bottom of the Colonel's chair, he probably could not have been more discomfited. What reason he had to be unquiet, will be more apparent at a later period. He fidgetted a little and hemmed more than once, before he replied: