it."

"You can't be young again."

"Perhaps not, in years; but I'll have all that belongs to youth."

"Not all. No man will love you."

Miss Webster brought her false teeth together with a snap. "Why not, I
should like to know? What difference do a few years make? Seventy is not
much, in any other calculation. Fancy if you had only seventy dollars
between you and starvation! Think of how many thousands of years old the
world is! I have now all that makes a woman attractive--wealth,
beautiful surroundings, scientific care. The steam is taking out my
wrinkles; I can see it."

She turned suddenly from the glass and flashed a look of resentment on
her companion.

"But I wish I had your thirty years' advantage. I do! I do! Then they'd
see."

The two women regarded each other in silence for a long moment. Love had
gone from the eyes and the hearts of both. Hate, unacknowledged as yet,
was growing. Miss Webster bitterly envied the wide gulf between old age
and her quarter-century companion and friend. Abigail bitterly envied
the older woman's power to invoke the resemblance and appurtenances of
youth, to indulge her lifelong yearnings.

When the companion went to her pillow that night she wept passionately.
"I will go," she said. "I'll be a servant; but I'll stay here no
longer."

The next morning she stood on the veranda and watched Miss Webster drive
away to market. The carriage and horses were unsurpassed in California.
The coachman and footman were in livery. The heiress was attired in
lustreless black silk elaborately trimmed with jet. A large hat covered
with plumes was kept in place above her painted face and red wig by a
heavily dotted veil--that crier of departed charms. She held a black
lace parasol in one carefully gloved hand. Her pretty foot was encased
in patent leather.

"The old fool!" murmured Abby. "Why, oh, why could it not have been
mine? I could make myself young without being ridiculous."

She let her duties go and sauntered down to the lake. Many painted boats
were anchored close to ornamental boat-houses. They seemed strangely out
of place beneath the sad old willows. The lawns were green with the
green of spring. Roses ran riot everywhere. The windows of the handsome
old-fashioned houses were open, and Abby was afforded glimpses of
fluttering white gowns, heard the tinkle of the mandolin, the cold
precise strains of the piano, the sudden uplifting of a youthful
soprano.

"After all, it