Doctor to make me look like
her."

"Don't be silly, Margaret! I don't want you to look like anybody but
yourself. I don't want to see their empty faces ever again!"

"But I thought--"

"Tell the Doctor to keep the other stereos. Let him put them in one of
his museums, with other dead things. They don't mean anything to me any
more. They haven't meant anything for a long time. The only reason I
didn't throw them away is because I forgot they were there and didn't
think of it."

"All right, Fred. I'll tell him to use our picture as a model."

"The AC studio shot. The close-up. Make sure he uses the right one."

"I'll see that there's no mistake."

"When I think I might have to look at one of _their_ mugs for the rest
of my life, I get a cold sweat. Don't take any chances, Margaret. It's
your face I want to see, and no one else's."

"Yes, dear."

_I'll be plain_, she thought, _but I'll wear well. A background always
wears well. Time can't hurt it much, because there's nothing there to
hurt._

_There's one thing I overlooked, though. How old will we look? The
Doctor is rather insensitive about human faces, and he might age us a
bit. He mustn't do that. It'll be all right if he wants to make us a
little younger, but not older. I'll have to warn him._

She warned him, and again he seemed rather amused at her.

"All right," he said, "you will appear slightly younger. Not too much
so, however, for from my reading I judge it best for a human face to
show not too great a discrepancy from the physiological age."

She breathed a sigh of relief. It was settled now, all settled.
Everything would be as before--perhaps just a little better. She and
Fred could go back to their married life with the knowledge that they
would be as happy as ever. Nothing exuberant, of course, but as happy as
their own peculiar natures permitted. As happy as a plain and worried
wife and a handsome husband could ever be.

* * * * *

Now that this had been decided, the days passed slowly. Her arms and
legs grew, and her eyes too. She could feel the beginnings of fingers
and toes, and on the sensitive optic nerve the flashes of light came
with greater and greater frequency. There were slight pains from time to
time, but they were pains she welcomed. They were the pains of growth,
of return to normalcy.

And then came the day when the Doctor said, "You have recovered. In
another day, as you measure time, I sh