What change had come over her? Here was a magnificent womanhood--radiant--compelling. Yet it did not affect me with its glory as it had done in previous years. Was my taste altering with the passing years or had some subtle change affected the divine Celeste? Whatever this was--whatever its origin--I felt a strange pity arise within my heart. It was then that I took counsel with MacDowell. He was growing old. I felt that fact keenly. Lines had been etched upon his face by the sharp pencil of time. Yet he was not using the mordant. “As I feared,” he deliberated. “The mordant keeps the years from bearing the fruit that is their right. Youth is not the thing desired by the creator. In the seed there is a glory beyond our seeing. Of our bodies come our children as fruit. Of our souls--growth of the spirit and eventually immortal life. That I believe. What means the withered husk of flesh after the fruit has ripened?” I knew at the moment that there was a soul. The man had such a depth of meaning to his voice that, sceptic as I was, irreligious as I wished to be, I could not keep from thinking that there was a tremendous power which held the world in its hand and gave heed to destiny. Something pulled my eyes toward the man. Old, I thought, of face--old, old and wrinkled. Yet, I paused in my thought, almost amazed that such an idea could have come to me, here was beauty too. A beauty, different indeed, but greater than that of Celeste’s. What was the light that poured from his eyes? What source did this radiant stream have within this man’s being? I gazed upon a sight as glorious as a sunset streaming from behind dark, age-old crags. What did this man possess? And through my mind sped the thought that I was gazing upon a soul--a soul so great that its grandeur and its luster could not be contained in the entirety behind the aging walls of flesh that gave it habitation. Then I knew what I had found lacking in Celeste. What it was that seemed to take something of glory from her. The youth of the flesh could not be affected without injury to the soul--without drying up the very sources of the spirit. The power of the heavens which has given youth its fair dwelling and its lure of fresh, firm flesh had so designed it that the aging of the body brought riches to the soul--or so it seemed to me at the moment. Perhaps all the sorrows attendant on decay of outward form and all the agonies, that come from gazing in mirroring surfaces upon faces that are no longer pleasing to the eye, are needful to higher development. I found my doubt of the existence of a wise God suddenly shaken at the foundations. I trembled before my new knowledge--was shaken to the core of my being. * * * * *