ay, and she loves not age and
decrepitude; and the face in the picture is faded, no rose-tints in the
cheeks. So old and weak--old age is very pitiful. But the picture is
not finished yet. Wait! Wait a little, and give the artist time. It
is not evening yet. Sunset lingers a little for him. His hand runs
now like a hurrying tide. He is painting faces. Why linger over the
face of age? If it were youth--but age? But he touches these aged
faces lovingly, as a son might caress his aged father and mother with
hand and with kiss; and beneath his touch the aged faces grow warm and
tender, passing sweet. To look at them was rest. Their eyes were
tender and brave. You remember they were old and feeble folk--young
once, but long ago; but how noble the old man's face, scarred though it
is with saber cut! To see him makes you valiant; and to see him
longer, makes you valiant for goodness, which is best of all.

And the woman's face is lit with God's calm and God's comfort. A smile
is in her eyes, and a smile lies, like sunlight, across her lips. Her
hair is the silver frame that hems some precious picture in. She is a
benediction, blessed as the restful night to weary toilers on a burning
day. And the artist, with a touch quick as a happy thought, outlined a
shadow, clad in tatters, and a child clad in tatters at her side; and
the girl, leaning over the painting, thought the chief shadow was
Death. But the artist hasted; and on a sudden, wings sprung from the
shoulders of tattered mother and child, and they two lifted up their
hands; the woman, lifting her hands above the dear forms of old age,
spread them out in blessing, and the little child lifted her hands,
clasped as in prayer; and these angels were Poverty, praying for and
blessing the man and woman who had been their help.

And the artist lover, under the first picture, in quaint letters, such
as monks in remote ages used, wrote this legend, "To-morrow;" and the
woman, taking the pencil, wrote in her sweet girlish hand, "Youth is
Very Beautiful." The artist took back his pencil, and under the second
picture scrolled, "These Loved Themselves Better Than They Loved
Others;" and the woman wrote, "Their To-morrow was Failure." Under the
third picture the artist wrote, "These Loved God Best and Their
Neighbors as Themselves;" and the woman took the pencil from his hand
and wrote, "Old Age is Very Beautiful--More Beautiful Than Youth," and
a tear fell and bl