heir 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
from 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 stuf