like to know? Hasn't a woman the right to be young if she can? I loved
Hiram. I was a faithful and devoted sister; but he took my youth, and
now that he has given it back, as it were I'll make the most of it."

"You can't be young again."

"Perhaps not, in years; but I'll have all that belongs to youth."

"Not all. No man will love you."

Miss Webster brought her false teeth together with a snap. "Why not, I
should like to know? What difference do a few years make? Seventy is not
much, in any other calculation. Fancy if you had only seventy dollars
between you and starvation! Think of how many thousands of years old the
world is! I have now all that makes a woman attractive--wealth,
beautiful surroundings, scientific care. The steam is taking out my
wrinkles; I can see it."

She turned suddenly from the glass and flashed a look of resentment on
her companion.

"But I wish I had your thirty years' advantage. I do! I do! Then they'd
see."

The two women regarded each other in silence for a long moment. Love had
gone from the eyes and the hearts of both. Hate, unacknowledged as yet,
was growing. Miss Webster bitterly envied the wide gulf between old age
and her quarter-century companion and friend. Abigail bitterly envied
the older woman's power to invoke the resemblance and appurtenances of
youth, to indulge her lifelong yearnings.