me had been at work upon for forty years; there were the tiniest
creases in her forehead, they were something like the cracks in the plate
two hundred years old that Marjorie had sent to her last night, there
were unmistakable lines under her eyes, the pale tint of her cheek did
not erase them nor the soft plumpness render them invisible, they stared
at her with the story of relentless years; at the corners of her lips the
artistic fingers of Time had chiselled lines, delicate, it is true, but
clearly defined--a line that did not dent the cheeks of early maidenhood,
a line that had found no place near her own lips ten years ago; and above
her eyes--she had not discerned that, at first--there was a lack of
fullness, you could not name it hollowness; that was new, at least new to
her, others with keener eyes may have noticed it months ago, and there
was a yellowness--she might as well give it boldly its right name--at the
temple, decrease of fairness, she might call it, but that it was a
positive shade of that yellowness she had noticed in others no older than
herself; and, then, to return to her cheeks, or rather her chin, there
was a laxity about the muscles at the sides of her mouth that gave her
chin an elderly outline! No, it was not only the absence of youth, it was
the presence of age--her full forty years. And her hair! It was certainly
not as abundant as it used to be, it had wearied her, once, to brush out
its thick glossy length; it was becoming unmistakably thinner; she was
certainly slightly bald about the temples, and white hairs were
straggling in one after another, not attempting to conceal themselves. A
year ago she had selected them from the mass of black and cut them short,
but now they were appearing too fast for the scissors. It was a sad face,
almost a gloomy one, that she was gazing into: for the knowledge that her
forty years had done their work in her face as surely, and perhaps not as
sweetly as in her life had come to her with a shock. She was certainly
growing older and the signs of it were in her face, nothing could hide
it, even her increasing seriousness made it more apparent; not only
growing older, but growing old, the girls would say. Twenty years ago,
when she first began to write that birthday record, she had laughed at
forty and called it "old" herself. As she laid the hand-glass aside with
a half-checked sigh, her eyes fell upon her hand and wrist; it was
certainly losing its shapeliness