om it like darkness from the crimson daybreak.

The fair widow knew of old that Colonel Killigrew's compliments were
not always measured by sober truth; so she started up and ran to the
mirror, still dreading that the ugly visage of an old woman would meet
her gaze.

Meanwhile, the three gentlemen behaved in such a manner as proved that
the water of the Fountain of Youth possessed some intoxicating
qualities--unless, indeed, their exhilaration of spirits were merely a
lightsome dizziness caused by the sudden removal of the weight of
years. Mr. Gascoigne's mind seemed to run on political topics, but
whether relating to the past, present or future could not easily be
determined, since the same ideas and phrases have been in vogue these
fifty years. Now he rattled forth full-throated sentences about
patriotism, national glory and the people's right; now he muttered
some perilous stuff or other in a sly and doubtful whisper, so
cautiously that even his own conscience could scarcely catch the
secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured accents and a
deeply-deferential tone, as if a royal ear were listening to his
well-turned periods. Colonel Killigrew all this time had been trolling
forth a jolly bottle-song and ringing his glass in symphony with the
chorus, while his eyes wandered toward the buxom figure of the widow
Wycherly. On the other side of the table, Mr. Medbourne was involved
in a calculation of dollars and cents with which was strangely
intermingled a project for supplying the East Indies with ice by
harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs. As for the widow
Wycherly, she stood before the mirror courtesying and simpering to her
own image and greeting it as the friend whom she loved better than all
the world besides. She thrust her face close to the glass to see
whether some long-remembered wrinkle or crow's-foot had indeed
vanished; she examined whether the snow had so entirely melted from
her hair that the venerable cap could be safely thrown aside. At last,
turning briskly away, she came with a sort of dancing step to the
table.

"My dear old doctor," cried she, "pray favor me with another glass."

"Certainly, my dear madam--certainly," replied the complaisant doctor.
"See! I have already filled the glasses."

There, in fact, stood the four glasses brimful of this wonderful
water, the delicate spray of which, as it effervesced from the
surface, resembled the tremulous glitter of diamonds.

It w