, for one, I 've no idea what sort of a
fellow my old man will turn out. I don't believe people can generally
tell much better what sort of old people will grow out of them than what
characters their children will have. A little better, perhaps, but not
much. Just think how different sets of faculties and tastes develop and
decay, come into prominence and retire into the background, as the years
pass. A trait scarcely noticeable in youth tinges the whole man in age."

"What striking dramatic effects are lost because the drama of life is
spun out so long instead of having the ends brought together," observed
George. "The spectators lose the force of the contrasts because they
forget the first part of every role before the latter part is reached.
One fails in consequence to get a realizing sense of the sublime
inconsistencies of every lifetime."

"That difficulty is what we propose, in a small way, to remedy next
Wednesday night," replied Henry.

Mary professed some scruples. It was so queer, she thought it must be
wrong. It was like tempting Providence to take for granted issues in his
hands, and masquerade with uncreated things like their own yet unborn
selves. But Frank reminded her that the same objection would apply to
any arrangement as to what they should do next week.

"Well, but," offered Jessie, "is it quite respectful to make sport of
old folks, even if they are ourselves?"

"My conscience is clear on that point," said Frank. "It's the only way
we can get even with them for the deprecating, contemptuous way in which
they will allude to us over their snuff and tea, as callow and flighty
youth, if indeed they deign to remember us at all, which is n't likely."

"I 'm all tangled up in my mind," said Nellie, with an air of
perplexity, "between these old people you are talking about and
ourselves. Which is which? It seems odd to talk of them in the third
person, and of ourselves in the first. Are n't they ourselves too?"

"If they are, then certainly we are not," replied Henry. "You may take
your choice.

"The fact is," he added, as she looked still more puzzled, "there are
half-a dozen of each one of us, or a dozen if you please, one in fact
for each epoch of life, and each slightly or almost wholly different
from the others. Each one of these epochs is foreign and inconceivable
to the others, as ourselves at seventy now are to us. It's as hard to
suppose ourselves old as to imagine swapping identities with