"I rejoice that I have so well
selected the subjects of my experiment."

With palsied hands they raised the glasses to their lips. The liquor,
if it really possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger imputed to it,
could not have been bestowed on four human beings who needed it more
woefully. They looked as if they had never known what youth or
pleasure was, but had been the offspring of Nature's dotage, and
always the gray, decrepit, sapless, miserable creatures who now sat
stooping round the doctor's table without life enough in their souls
or bodies to be animated even by the prospect of growing young again.
They drank off the water and replaced their glasses on the table.

Assuredly, there was an almost immediate improvement in the aspect of
the party--not unlike what might have been produced by a glass of
generous wine--together with a sudden glow of cheerful sunshine,
brightening over all their visages at once. There was a healthful
suffusion on their cheeks instead of the ashen hue that had made them
look so corpse-like. They gazed at one another, and fancied that some
magic power had really begun to smooth away the deep and sad
inscriptions which Father Time had been so long engraving on their
brows. The widow Wycherly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a
woman again.

"Give us more of this wondrous water," cried they, eagerly. "We are
younger, but we are still too old. Quick! give us more!"

"Patience, patience!" quoth Dr. Heidegger, who sat, watching the
experiment with philosophic coolness. "You have been a long time
growing old; surely you might be content to grow young in half an
hour. But the water is at your service." Again he filled their glasses
with the liquor of youth, enough of which still remained in the vase
to turn half the old people in the city to the age of their own
grandchildren.

While the bubbles were yet sparkling on the brim the doctor's four
guests snatched their glasses from the table and swallowed the
contents at a single gulp. Was it delusion? Even while the draught was
passing down their throats it seemed to have wrought a change on their
whole systems. Their eyes grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened
among their silvery locks: they sat around the table three gentlemen
of middle age and a woman hardly beyond her buxom prime.

"My dear widow, you are charming!" cried Colonel Killigrew, whose eyes
had been fixed upon her face while the shadows of age were flitting
fr