as now so nearly sunset that the chamber had grown duskier than
ever, but a mild and moonlike splendor gleamed from within the vase
and rested alike on the four guests and on the doctor's venerable
figure. He sat in a high-backed, elaborately-carved oaken arm-chair
with a gray dignity of aspect that might have well befitted that very
Father Time whose power had never been disputed save by this fortunate
company. Even while quaffing the third draught of the Fountain of
Youth, they were almost awed by the expression of his mysterious
visage. But the next moment the exhilarating gush of young life shot
through their veins. They were now in the happy prime of youth. Age,
with its miserable train of cares and sorrows and diseases, was
remembered only as the trouble of a dream from which they had joyously
awoke. The fresh gloss of the soul, so early lost and without which
the world's successive scenes had been but a gallery of faded
pictures, again threw its enchantment over all their prospects. They
felt like new-created beings in a new-created universe.

"We are young! We are young!" they cried, exultingly.

Youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly-marked
characteristics of middle life and mutually assimilated them all. They
were a group of merry youngsters almost maddened with the exuberant
frolicsomeness of their years. The most singular effect of their
gayety was an impulse to mock the infirmity and decrepitude of which
they had so lately been the victims. They laughed loudly at their
old-fashioned attire--the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of
the young men and the ancient cap and gown of the blooming girl. One
limped across the floor like a gouty grandfather; one set a pair of
spectacles astride of his nose and pretended to pore over the
black-letter pages of the book of magic; a third seated himself in an
arm-chair and strove to imitate the venerable dignity of Dr.
Heidegger. Then all shouted mirthfully and leaped about the room.

The widow Wycherly--if so fresh a damsel could be called a
widow--tripped up to the doctor's chair with a mischievous merriment
in her rosy face.

"Doctor, you dear old soul," cried she, "get up and dance with me;"
and then the four young people laughed louder than ever to think what
a queer figure the poor old doctor would cut.

"Pray excuse me," answered the doctor, quietly. "I am old and
rheumatic, and my dancing-days were over long ago. But either of thes