have
reflected the figures of the three old, gray, withered grand-sires,
ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a shrivelled grandam.

But they were young: their burning passions proved them so. Inflamed to
madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow, who neither granted nor quite
withheld her favors, the three rivals began to interchange threatening
glances. Still keeping hold of the fair prize, they grappled fiercely at
one another's throats. As they struggled to and fro, the table was
overturned, and the vase dashed into a thousand fragments. The precious
Water of Youth flowed in a bright stream across the floor, moistening
the wings of a butterfly, which, grown old in the decline of summer, had
alighted there to die. The insect fluttered lightly through the chamber,
and settled on the snowy head of Dr. Heidegger.

"Come, come gentlemen!--come, Madame Wycherly," exclaimed the doctor, "I
really must protest against this riot."

They stood still, and shivered; for it seemed as if gray Time were
calling them back from their sunny youth, far down into the chill and
darksome vale of years. They looked at old Dr. Heidegger, who sat in his
carved arm-chair, holding the rose of half a century, which he had
rescued from among the fragments of the shattered vase. At the motion
of his hand, the four rioters resumed their seats; the more readily
because their violent exertions had wearied them, youthful though they
were.

"My poor Sylvia's rose!" ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, holding it in the
light of the sunset clouds; "it appears to be fading again."

And so it was. Even while the party were looking at it, the flower
continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as when the
doctor had first thrown it into the vase. He shook off the few drops of
moisture which clung to its petals.

"I love it as well thus, as in its dewy freshness," observed he,
pressing the withered rose to his withered lips. While he spoke, the
butterfly fluttered down from the doctor's snowy head, and fell upon the
floor.

His guests shivered again. A strange dullness, whether of the body or
spirit they could not tell, was creeping gradually over them all. They
gazed at one another, and fancied that each fleeting moment snatched
away a charm, and left a deepening furrow where none had been before.
Was it an illusion? Had the changes of a lifetime been crowded into so
brief a space, and were they now four aged people, sitting with