She was a great personage in her part of the world, a great dowager land-owner, as poor as a mouse, and as respectable as a hen.

She was, moreover, a keen politician on the side of Miss Churchill.

I, who am neither land-owner, nor respectable, nor politician, had never been acknowledged--but I knew that, for the sake of the race, she would have refrained from enlarging on my shortcomings.
"Has she found a companion to suit her yet ?" I said, absent-mindedly.

I was thinking of an old legend of my mother's.

Miss Churchill looked me in between the eyes again.