seemed to last all their lives long.
Mrs. Oldcastle had a friend in London who had placidly adopted middle
age in her twenty-fifth year; and we agreed that a white-haired,
rubicund gentleman of fully sixty years, then engaged in winning a
quoits tournament before our eyes, seemed possessed of the gift of
unending youth.

'You know, I really feel quite strongly on the point,' said Mrs.
Oldcastle. 'My friend, Betty Millen, has positively made herself a
frump at five-and-twenty. We practically quarrelled over it. I don't
think people have any right to do that sort of thing. It is not fair
to their friends. Seriously, I do regard it as an actual duty for
every one to cherish and preserve her youth.'

'And _his_ youth, too?' I asked.

'Certainly, I think there is even less excuse for men who go out half-way
to meet middle-age. That sort of middle-age really is a kind of
slow dying. Age is a sort of gradual, piecemeal death, after all. It
can be fended off, and ought to be. Men have more active and
interesting lives than women, as a rule; and so have the less excuse
for allowing age to creep upon them.'

'But surely, in a general way, the poor fellows cannot help it?'

'Oh, I don't agree. I have known men old enough to be my father, so
far as years go, who were splendidly youthful. The older a man is,
within limits of course, the more interesting he should be, and is,
unless he has weakly allowed age to benumb him before his time. Then
he becomes merely depressing, a kind of drag and lowering influence
upon his friends; and, too, a horridly ageing influence upon them.'

I nodded, musing, none too cheerily.

'After all,' she continued vivaciously, 'science has done such a lot
for us of late. Practically every one can keep bodily young and fit.
It only means taking a little trouble. And the rest, I think, is just
a question of will-power and mental hygiene. No, I have no patience
with people who grow old; unless, of course, they really are very old
in years. I think it argues either stupidity or a kind of
profligacy--mental, nervous, and emotional, I mean--and in either case
it is very unfair to those about them, for there is nothing so horribly
contagious.'

I have sometimes wondered if Mrs. Oldcastle had any deliberate purpose
in this conversation. Upon the whole, I think not. I remember
distinctly that the responsibility for introducing the subject was
mine. She might have been covertly instructing me for my own b