Seem the happiest years that come.'"

"Well, of course!" said Mrs. Lenox. "Does not everybody say so?"

Nobody answered.

"Does not everybody agree in that judgment, Miss Lothrop?" urged the
gentleman.

"I dare say--everybody looking from that standpoint," said Lois. "And
the poets write accordingly. They are all of them seeing shadows."

"How can they help seeing shadows?" returned Mrs. Lenox impatiently.
"The shadows are there!"

"Yes," said Lois, "the shadows are there." But there was a reservation
in her voice.

"Do not _you_, then, reckon the years of childhood the happiest?" Mr.
Lenox inquired.

"No."

"But you cannot have had much experience of life," said Mrs. Lenox, "to
say so. I don't see how they can _help_ being the happiest, to any one."

"I believe," Lois answered, lowering her voice a little, "that if we
could see all, we should see that the oldest person in our company is
the happiest here."

The eyes of the strangers glanced towards the old lady in her low chair
at the front of the ox cart. In her wrinkled face there was not a line
of beauty, perhaps never had been; in spite of its sense and character
unmistakeable; it was grave, she was thinking her own thoughts; it was
weather-beaten, so to say, with the storms of life; and yet there was
an expression of unruffled repose upon it, as calm as the glint of
stars in a still lake. Mrs. Lenox's look was curiously incredulous,
scornful, and wistful, together; it touched Lois.

"One's young years ought not to be one's best," she said.

"How are you going to help it?" came almost querulously. Lois thought,
if _she_ were Mr. Lenox, she would not feel flattered.

"When one is young, one does not know disappointment," the other went
on.

"And when one is old, one may get the better of disappointment."

"When one is young, everything is fresh."

"I think things grow fresher to me with every year," said Lois,
laughing. "Mrs. Lenox, it is possible to keep one's youth."

"Then you have found the philosopher's stone?" said Mr. Lenox.

Lois's smile was brilliant, but she said nothing to that. She was
beginning to feel that she had talked more than her share, and was
inclined to draw back. Then there came a voice from the arm-chair, it
came upon a pause of stillness, with its quiet, firm tones:

'He satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed
like the eagle's.'"

The voice came like an oracle, and was listened to