ing, aloud, whether the years
were, indeed, passing; whether this, which I had taken to be a form of
vision, was, in truth, a reality. I paused. A new thought had struck me.
Quickly, but with steps which, for the first time, I noticed, tottered,
I went across the room to the great pier-glass, and looked in. It was
too covered with grime, to give back any reflection, and, with trembling
hands, I began to rub off the dirt. Presently, I could see myself. The
thought that had come to me, was confirmed. Instead of the great, hale
man, who scarcely looked fifty, I was looking at a bent, decrepit man,
whose shoulders stooped, and whose face was wrinkled with the years of a
century. The hair--which a few short hours ago had been nearly coal
black--was now silvery white. Only the eyes were bright. Gradually, I
traced, in that ancient man, a faint resemblance to my self of
other days.

I turned away, and tottered to the window. I knew, now, that I was old,
and the knowledge seemed to confirm my trembling walk. For a little
space, I stared moodily out into the blurred vista of changeful
landscape. Even in that short time, a year passed, and, with a petulant
gesture, I left the window. As I did so, I noticed that my hand shook
with the palsy of old age; and a short sob choked its way through
my lips.

For a little while, I paced, tremulously, between the window and the
table; my gaze wandering hither and thither, uneasily. How dilapidated
the room was. Everywhere lay the thick dust--thick, sleepy, and black.
The fender was a shape of rust. The chains that held the brass
clock-weights, had rusted through long ago, and now the weights lay on
the floor beneath; themselves two cones of verdigris.

As I glanced about, it seemed to me that I could see the very furniture
of the room rotting and decaying before my eyes. Nor was this fancy, on
my part; for, all at once, the bookshelf, along the sidewall, collapsed,
with a cracking and rending of rotten wood, precipitating its contents
upon the floor, and filling the room with a smother of dusty atoms.

How tired I felt. As I walked, it seemed that I could hear my dry
joints, creak and crack at every step. I wondered about my sister. Was
she dead, as well as Pepper? All had happened so quickly and suddenly.
This must be, indeed, the beginning of the end of all things! It
occurred to me, to go to look for her; but I felt too weary. And then,
she had been so queer about these happenings, o