ty, we shall, most of us, have altogether
forgotten our present intimacies and formed others, quite inconceivable
now. I can imagine Frank over there, scratching his bald head with his
spectacle tips, and trying to recall me. 'Hen. Long, Hen. Long,--let
me think; name sounds familiar, and yet I can't quite place him. Did n't
I know him at C------, or was it at college? Bless me, how forgetful I
'm growing!'"

They all laughed at Henry's bit of acting. Perhaps it was only sparkles
of mirth, but it might have been glances of tender confidence that shot
between certain pairs of eyes betokening something that feared not
time. This is in no sort a love story, but such things can't be wholly
prevented.

The girls, however, protested that this talk about growing so utterly
away from each other was too dismal for anything, and they would n't
believe it anyhow. The old-fashioned notions about eternal constancy
were ever so much nicer. It gave them the cold shivers to hear Henry's
ante-mortem dissection of their friendship, and that young man was
finally forced to admit that the members of the club would probably
prove exceptions to the general rule in such matters. It was agreed,
therefore, that they should appear to know each other at the old folks'
party.

"All you girls must, of course, be called 'Mrs.' instead of 'Miss,'"
suggested Frank, "though you will have to keep your own names, that
is, unless you prefer to disclose any designs you may have upon other
people's; "for which piece of impertinence Nellie, who sat next him,
boxed his ears,--for the reader must know that these young people were
on a footing of entire familiarity and long intimacy.

"Do you know what time it is?" asked Mary, who, by virtue of the sweet
sedateness of her disposition, was rather the monitress of the company.

"It's twelve o'clock, an hour after the club's curfew."

"Well," remarked Henry, rousing from the fit of abstraction in which he
had been pursuing the subject of their previous discussion, "it was to
be expected we should get a little mixed as to chronology over such talk
as this."

"With our watches set fifty years ahead, there 'll be no danger of
overstaying our time next Wednesday, anyhow," added Frank.

Soon the girls presented themselves in readiness for outdoors, and, in a
pleasant gust of good-bys and parting jests, the party broke up.

"Good-by for fifty years," Jessie called after them from the stoop, as
the merry coupl