transform her, make her young and desirable... The chief fruit of
his experience was that there is no such fixed state as age or
youth--there is only health as against sickness, wealth as against
poverty; and age or youth as the outcome of the lot one draws.

At this point in his narrative Granice stood up, and went to lean
against the mantel-piece, looking down at Ascham, who had not moved
from his seat, or changed his attitude of rigid fascinated
attention.

"Then came the summer when we went to Wrenfield to be near old
Lenman--my mother's cousin, as you know. Some of the family always
mounted guard over him--generally a niece or so. But that year they
were all scattered, and one of the nieces offered to lend us her
cottage if we'd relieve her of duty for two months. It was a
nuisance for me, of course, for Wrenfield is two hours from town;
but my mother, who was a slave to family observances, had always
been good to the old man, so it was natural we should be called
on--and there was the saving of rent and the good air for Kate. So
we went.

"You never knew Joseph Lenman? Well, picture to yourself an amoeba
or some primitive organism of that sort, under a Titan's microscope.
He was large, undifferentiated, inert--since I could remember him he
had done nothing but take his temperature and read the _Churchman_.
Oh, and cultivate melons--that was his hobby. Not vulgar,
out-of-door melons--his were grown under glass. He had miles of it
at Wrenfield--his big kitchen-garden was surrounded by blinking
battalions of green-houses. And in nearly all of them melons were
grown--early melons and late, French, English, domestic--dwarf