er, for me to believe that our youth is somewhere immortal, than
that it has been withered, shrivelled, desiccated into our old age. Oh,
no, my dear, Paradise is not merely a garden of withered flowers! We
shall find the rose and lily of our life blooming there."

The hours had slipped away unnoticed as the friends talked together, and
now the lengthening shadows on the school-room floor recalled Miss
Ludington to the present, and to the duties of a hostess.

As they walked slowly across the green toward the homestead, she told her
friend more fully of this belief in the immortality of past selves which
had so recently come to her, and especially how it had quite taken away
the melancholy with which she had all her life before looked back upon
her youth. Mrs. Slater listened in silence.

"Where on earth did you get that portrait?" she exclaimed, as Miss
Ludington, after taking her on a tour through the house before tea,
brought her into the sitting-room.

"Whom does it remind you of?" asked Miss Ludington.

"I know whom it reminds me of," replied Mrs. Slater; "but how it ever got
here is what puzzles me."

"I thought you would recognize it," said Miss Ludington, with a pleased
smile. "I suppose you think it odd you should never have seen it,
considering whom it is of?"

"I do, certainly," replied Mrs. Slater.

"You see," explained Miss Ludington, "I did not have it painted till
after I left Hilton. You remember that little ivory portrait of myself at
seventeen, which I thought so much of after I lost my looks? Well, this
portrait I had enlarged from that. I have always believed that it was
very like, but you don't know what a reassurance it is to me to have you
recognize it so instantly."

At the tea-table Paul appeared, and was introduced to Mrs. Slater, who
regarded him with considerable interest. Miss Ludington had informed her
that he was her cousin and heir, and had told her something of his
romantic devotion to the Ida of the picture. Paul, who from Miss
Ludington had learned all there was to be known about the persons and
places of old Hilton, entered with much interest into the conversation of
the ladies on the subject, and after tea accompanied them in their stroll
through that part of the village which they had not inspected before.

When they returned to the house it was quite dark, and they had lights in
the sitting-room, and refreshments were served. Mrs. Slater's eyes were
frequently drawn towar