sun had made a living rainbow that carried colour
and light into the hall and even up the stairway.

As she sat with her back to it, the light was scarcely less gentle with
Madame. It brought silver into her white hair, shimmered along the
silken surface of her grey gown, and deepened the violet shadows in her
eyes. It threw into vivid relief the cameo that fastened the lace at her
throat, rested for a moment upon the mellow gold of her worn
wedding-ring as she filled Alden's cup, and paused reminiscently at the
corner of her mouth, where there had once been a dimple.

[Sidenote: Tales of a Mirror]

Across the table, the light shone full upon Alden's face, but, man-like,
he had no fear of it. Madame noted, with loving approval, how it
illumined the dark depths of his eyes and showed the strength of his
firm, boyish chin. Each day, to her, he grew more like his father.

"A penny for your thoughts," he said.

Madame sighed. "It seems so strange," she replied, after a pensive
interval, "that I should be old and you should be young. You look so
much like your father sometimes that it is as though the clock had
turned back for him and I had gone on. You're older now than he was when
we were married, but I need my mirror to remind me that I'm past my
twenties."

"A woman and her mirror," laughed Alden, helping himself to a crisp
muffin. "What tales each might tell of the other, if they would!"

"Don't misunderstand me, dear," she said, quickly. "It's not that I mind
growing old. I've never been the unhappy sort of woman who desires to
keep the year for ever at the Spring. Each season has its own
beauty--its own charm. We would tire of violets and apple-blossoms if
they lasted always. Impermanence is the very essence of joy--the drop of
bitterness that enables one to perceive the sweet."

[Sidenote: Over the Breakfast Cups]

"All of which is undoubtedly true," he returned, gallantly, "but the
fact remains that you're not old and never will be. You're merely a girl
who has powdered her hair for a fancy-dress ball."

"Flatterer!" she said, with affected severity, but the delicate pink
flush that bloomed in her cheeks showed that she was pleased.

"Will you drive to-day?" he asked, as they rose from the table.

"I think not. I'm a hot-house plant, you know, and it seems cold
outside."

"Have the new books come yet?"

"Yes, they came yesterday, but I haven't opened the parcel."

"I hope they won't prove as disap