“How in the world did such an odd idea come into your head?” asked pretty Nellie Tyrrell, whose dancing black eyes were the most piquant of interrogation points, with which it was so delightful to be punctured that people were generally slow to gratify her curiosity. “I was beginning a journal this afternoon,” said Henry, “and the idea of Henry Long, aetat. seventy, looking over the leaves, and wondering about the youth who wrote them so long ago, came up to my mind.” Henry's suggestion had set them all thinking, and the vein was so unfamiliar that they did not at once find much to say. “I should think,” finally remarked George, “that such an old folks' party would afford a chance for some pretty careful study, and some rather good acting.” “Fifty years will make us all not far from seventy. What shall we look like then, I wonder?” musingly asked Mary Fellows. She was the demurest, dreamiest of the three girls; the most of a woman, and the least of a talker. She had that poise and repose of manner which are necessary to make silence in company graceful. “We may be sure of one thing, anyhow, and that is, that we shall not look and feel at all as we do now,” said Frank. “I suppose,” he added, “if, by a gift of second sight, we could see tonight, as in a glass, what we shall be at seventy, we should entirely fail to recognize ourselves, and should fall to disputing which was which.” “Yes, and we shall doubtless have changed as much in disposition as in appearance,” added Henry. “Now, 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 rôle 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?”