riods. Colonel Killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a
jolly battle-song, and ringing his glass toward the buxom figure of
the Widow Wycherley. On the other side of the table Mr. Medbourne
was involved in a calculation of dollars and cents, with which was
strangely intermingled a project for supplying the East Indies with
ice, by harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs.

As for the Widow Wycherley, she stood before the mirror, courtesying
and simpering to her own image, and greeting it as the friend whom she
loved better than all the world beside. She thrust her face close to
the glass to see whether some long-remembered wrinkle or crow's-foot
had indeed vanished. She examined whether the snow had so entirely
melted from her hair that the venerable cap could be safely thrown
aside. At last, turning briskly away, she came with a sort of dancing
step to the table.

"My dear old doctor," cried she, "pray favor me with another glass!"

"Certainly, my dear madam, certainly!" replied the complaisant doctor.
"See! I have already filled the glasses."

There, in fact, stood the four glasses, brimful of this wonderful
water, the delicate spray of which, as it effervesced from the
surface, resembled the tremulous glitter of diamonds. It was now so
nearly sunset that the chamber had grown duskier than ever; but a mild
and moon-like splendor gleamed from within the vase, and rested alike
on the four guests, and on the doctor's venerable figure. He sat in a
high-backed, elaborately carved oaken chair, with a gray dignity of
aspect that might have well befitted that very Father Time, whose
power had never been disputed, save by this fortunate company. Even
while quaffing the third draught of the Fountain of Youth, they were
almost awed by the expression of his mysterious visage.

But the next moment the exhilarating gush of young life shot through
their veins. They were now in the happy prime of youth. Age, with its
miserable train of cares, and sorrows, and diseases, was remembered
only as the trouble of a dream, from which they had joyously awoke.
The fresh gloss of the soul, so early lost, and without which the
world's successive scenes had been but a gallery of faded pictures,
again threw its enchantment over all their prospects. They felt like
new-created beings in a new-created universe.

"We are young! We are young!" they cried, exultingly.

Youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly m