“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 another. And when we get old it will be just as hard to realize that we were ever young. So that the different periods of life are to all intents and purposes different persons, and the first person of grammar ought to be used only with the present tense. What we were, or shall be, or do, belongs strictly to the third person.”
“You would make sad work of grammar with that notion,” said Jessie, smiling.
“Grammar needs mending just there,” replied Henry. “The three persons of grammar are really not enough. A fourth is needed to distinguish the ego of the past and future from the present ego, which is the only true one.”
“Oh, you're getting altogether too deep for me,” said Jessie. “Come, girls, what in the world are we going to get to wear next Wednesday?”
“Sure enough!” cried they with one accord, while the musing look in their eyes gave place to a vivacious and merry expression.
“My mother is n't near as old as we 're going to be. Her things won't do,” said Nellie.
“Nor mine,” echoed Jessie; “but perhaps Mary's grandmother will let us have some of her things.”
“In that case,” suggested Frank, “it will be only civil to invite her to the party.”
“To be sure, why not?” agreed Jessie. “It is to be an 'old folks' party, and her presence will give a reality to the thing.”
“I don't believe she 'll come,” said George. “You see being old is dead earnest to her, and she won't see the joke.”