th the children. They were sitting on some steps,
he a step below her, and he seemed to want to put his head on her knee;
but I gazed at him sternly, and he didn't dare. We should look like them,
if we yielded to any outburst of affection. Don't you think we should
look like them?"

"I don't know," said Basil. "You are certainly a little wrinkled, my
dear."

"And you are very fat, Basil."

They glanced at each other with a flash of resentment, and then they both
laughed. "We couldn't look young if we quarreled a week," he said. "We
had better content ourselves with feeling young, as I hope we shall do if
we live to be ninety. It will be the loss of others if they don't see our
bloom upon us. Shall I get you a paper of cherries, Isabel? The children
seem to be enjoying them."

Isabel sprang upon her offspring with a cry of despair. "Oh, what shall I
do? Now we shall not have a wink of sleep with them to-night. Where is
that nux?" She hunted for the medicine in her bag, and the children
submitted; for they had eaten all the cherries, and they took their
medicine without a murmur. "I wonder at your letting them eat the sour
things, Basil," said their mother, when the children bad run off to the
newsstand again.

"I wonder that you left me to see what they were doing," promptly
retorted their father.

"It was your nonsense about the brides," said Isabel; "and I think this
has been a lesson to us. Don't let them get anything else to eat,
dearest."

"They are safe; they have no more money. They are frugally confining
themselves to the admiration of the Japanese bows and arrows yonder. Why
have our Indians taken to making Japanese bows and arrows?"

Isabel despised the small pleasantry. "Then you saw nobody at the hotel?"
she asked.

"Not even the Ellisons," said Basil.

"Ah, yes," said Isabel; "that was where we met them. How long ago it
seems! And poor little Kitty! I wonder what has become of them? But I'm
glad they're not here. That's what makes you realize your age: meeting
the same people in the same place a great while after, and seeing how
old--they've grown. I don't think I could bear to see Kitty Ellison
again. I'm glad she did n't come to visit us in Boston, though, after
what happened, she could n't, poor thing! I wonder if she 's ever
regretted her breaking with him in the way she did. It's a very painful
thing to think of,--such an inconclusive conclusion; it always seemed as
if they ought to meet a