be traced back to
mine own veracious self; and if any passages of the present tale
should startle the reader's faith, I must be content to bear the
stigma of a fiction-monger.

When the doctor's four guests heard him talk of his proposed
experiment, they anticipated nothing more wonderful than the murder of
a mouse in an air-pump or the examination of a cobweb by the
microscope, or some similar nonsense with which he was constantly in
the habit of pestering his intimates. But without waiting for a reply
Dr. Heidegger hobbled across the chamber and returned with the same
ponderous folio bound in black leather which common report affirmed to
be a book of magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume
and took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once a
rose, though now the green leaves and crimson petals had assumed one
brownish hue and the ancient flower seemed ready to crumble to dust in
the doctor's hands.

"This rose," said Dr. Heidegger, with a sigh--"this same withered and
crumbling flower--blossomed five and fifty years ago. It was given me
by Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder, and I meant to wear it in
my bosom at our wedding. Five and fifty years it has been treasured
between the leaves of this old volume. Now, would you deem it possible
that this rose of half a century could ever bloom again?"

"Nonsense!" said the widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head.
"You might as well ask whether an old woman's wrinkled face could ever
bloom again."

"See!" answered Dr. Heidegger. He uncovered the vase and threw the
faded rose into the water which it contained. At first it lay lightly
on the surface of the fluid, appearing to imbibe none of its moisture.
Soon, however, a singular change began to be visible. The crushed and
dried petals stirred and assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as if
the flower were reviving from a deathlike slumber, the slender stalk
and twigs of foliage became green, and there was the rose of half a
century, looking as fresh as when Sylvia Ward had first given it to
her lover. It was scarcely full-blown, for some of its delicate red
leaves curled modestly around its moist bosom, within which two or
three dewdrops were sparkling.

"That is certainly a very pretty deception," said the doctor's
friends--carelessly, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles
at a conjurer's show. "Pray, how was it effected?"

"Did you never hear of the Fountain of