Even while quaffing the third draught of the Fountain of Youth, theywere almost awed by the expression of his mysterious visage.
But, the next moment, the exhilarating gush of young life shotthrough their veins. They were now in the happy prime of youth. Age,with its miserable train of cares and sorrows and diseases, wasremembered only as the trouble of a dream, from which they hadjoyously awoke. The fresh gloss of the soul, so early lost, andwithout which the world's successive scenes had been but a galleryof faded pictures, again threw its enchantment over all theirprospects. They felt like new-created beings in a new-createduniverse.
"We are young! We are young!" they cried exultingly.
Youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly-markedcharacteristics of middle life, and mutually assimilated them all.
They were a group of merry youngsters, almost maddened with theexuberant frolicsomeness of their years. The most singular effect oftheir gayety was an impulse to mock the infirmity and decrepitude ofwhich they had so lately been the victims. They laughed loudly attheir old-fashioned attire, the wide-skirted coats and flappedwaist-coats of the young men, and the ancient cap and gown of theblooming girl. One limped across the floor like a gouty grandfather;one set a pair of spectacles astride of his nose, and pretended topore over the black-letter pages of the book of magic; a thirdseated himself in an arm-chair, and strove to imitate the venerabledignity of Dr. Heidegger. Then all shouted mirthfully, and leapedabout the room. The Widow Wycherly- if so fresh a damsel could becalled a widow- tripped up to the doctor's chair, with a mischievousmerriment in her rosy face.
"Doctor, you dear old soul," cried she, "get up and dance with me!"And then the four young people laughed louder than ever, to think whata queer figure the poor old doctor would cut.
"Pray excuse me," answered the doctor quietly. "I am old andrheumatic, and my dancing days were over long ago. But either of thesegay young gentlemen will be glad of so pretty a partner.""Dance with me, Clara!" cried Colonel Killigrew.
"No, no, I will be her partner!" shouted Mr. Gascoigne.
"She promised me her hand, fifty years ago!" exclaimed Mr.
Medbourne.
They all gathered round her. One caught both her hands in hispassionate grasp- another threw his arm about her waist- the thirdburied his hand among the glossy curls that clustered beneath thewidow's cap. Blushing, panting, struggling, chiding, laughing, herwarm breath fanning each of their faces by turns, she strove todisengage herself, yet still remained in their triple embrace. Neverwas there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with bewitchingbeauty for the prize. Yet, by a strange deception, owing to theduskiness of the chamber, and the antique dresses which they stillwore, the tall mirror is said to have reflected the figures of thethree old, gray, withered grandsires, ridiculously contending forthe skinny ugliness of a shrivelled grandam.
But they were young: their burning passions proved them so.
