"Frank used to say," said Grandmother, irrelevantly, "that he always had his own carriage until his Pa and me got tired of pushin' it." "What kind of a carriage is an erect carriage?" queried Matilda, biting off her thread. "I ain't never heard tell of 'em," replied Grandmother, cautiously, "but I should think, from the sound of it, that it was some kind that was to be driv' standin' up." [Sidenote: The Power of Ages] "Then I've seen 'em." "Where?" Grandmother lowered her spectacles to the point where they rested upon the wart and peered disconcertingly at Matilda. The upper part of the steel frames crossed her eyeballs horizontally, giving her an uncanny appearance. "At the circus, when Pa took us. After the whole show was over they had what they called a chariot race, and women driv' around the tent in little two-wheeled carts, standin' up." "Matilda Starr! 'Tain't no such thing!" Matilda shrugged her shoulders with an air of finality. "All right," she returned, with cold sarcasm, "as long as you see it and I didn't." "'Beauty has been the power of the ages,'" Grandmother continued, taking refuge once more in _The Household Guardian_. "'Cleopatra and Helen of Troy changed the map of the world by their imperial loveliness.'" "I didn't know imps was lovely," Matilda remarked, frowning at the result of her labours. "I reckon I'll have to set a piece in at the corner, where it's puckerin'." "Ain't I always told you that the only way to mend a three-cornered tear was to set a piece in? Some folks never get old enough to learn anything. Even Frank's wife would have known better'n that." [Sidenote: Cleopatra] "Never mind Frank's wife," returned Matilda, somewhat hurriedly. "Let her rest in her grave and go on readin' about the lovely imps." "It doesn't say imps is lovely. It says 'imperial loveliness.'" "Well, ain't that the same thing?" "No, it ain't. Imperial means empire." "Then why ain't it spelled so? Imperial begins with an _i_ and so does imp, and, accordin' to what I learned when I went to school, empire begins with an _e_." There seemed to be no adequate reply to this, so Grandmother went on: "If Cleopatra's nose had been an inch longer, where would Egypt have been now?" "Where 'tis, I reckon," Matilda returned, seeing that an answer was expected. "No, it wouldn't." "Why not?" "I don't know why not, but if it wouldn't have made no difference, the man that wrote the piece wouldn't have asked about it." "Well, then, let him answer it himself, as long as he knows." "'Wars have been fought over beautiful women,'" Grandmother resumed, "'and will continue to be till the end of time.'" "What about Egypt?" interrupted Matilda.