There was a curious reluctance on the part of the old ladies to move. There was much wagging of heads, much nudging of elbows, whispers and winks and murmurs from every quarter, but no one stirred. Those who really had no personal interest or legitimate right to an interest in Mr. Jessup’s quest for a wife stayed to see what the others might do. The matron repeated her request. Then old Mrs. Smith, bent and humpbacked, took up her cane and hobbled slowly toward the stairway. “Ef he wanted me,” she declared with mock asperity, “he should oughter come twenty year ago. Ye notice,” she added, looking over her shoulder with her sharp, shrewd peaked face, “he didn’t tell how old _he_ was.” “He’s sixty-nine,” laughed the matron. “Most men of his age would have insisted on a wife of eighteen.” There was a scurrying sound among the group of old ladies and suddenly there darted across the hall a younger, slimmer, straighter figure than Mrs. Smith’s. “Miss Ellie!” protestingly called the matron, “where are you going?” Miss Ellie paused, her face flushed with shame to think she had not fled from the hall before. She paused and looked at the matron. However old she was, Miss Ellie did not look more than fifty years. Her hair was luxuriant, half silver, half gold, faded, yet giving a curious effect of a halo of moonlight. The flush mounted higher up the spinster’s cheeks until it crept over her forehead to the edge of her hair. For a moment she stood thus, looking at the youthful matron. Then, with a world of reproach in her tones, she said simply: “Miss Jessica!” Then she went up the stairs with quick and trembling limbs, but with an air of dignity that acted as a rebuke upon those lingering the hall. “Proud Miss Ellie!” murmured Jessica, herself feeling ashamed. “I do think,” began Mrs. Honan in a loud, strident key, “I do think myself that the man didn’t show very fine feeling. The idea of him a-spectin’ a woman ter jump at his head. Ef he wanted a wife, why didn’t he come a-lookin’ around modest an’ quiet-like in the good, old fashioned way?”