"I cannot see that your aunt looks a day older than she did twenty years ago," said Dr. James Stedman.
Miss Vesta Blyth looked up in some trepidation, and the soft color came into her cheeks.
"You have called on her, then, James," she said. "I am truly glad. How did she—that is, I am sure she was rejoiced to see you, as every one in the village is."
Doctor Stedman chuckled, and pulled his handsome gray beard. "She may have been rejoiced," he said; "I trust she was. She said first that she hoped I had come back wiser than I went, and when I replied that I hoped I had learned a little, she said she could not abide new-fangled notions, and that if I expected to try any experiments on her I would find myself mistaken. Yes, I find her quite unchanged, and wholly delightful. What amazing vigor! I am too old for her, that's the trouble. Young Strong is far more her contemporary than I am. Why, she is as much interested in every aspect of life as any boy in the village. Before I left I had told her all that I knew, and a good deal that I didn't."
"It is greatly to be regretted," said Miss Phœbe Blyth, pausing in an intricate part of her knitting, and looking over her glasses with mild severity, "it is greatly to be regretted that Aunt Marcia occupies herself so largely with things temporal. At her advanced age, her acute interest in—one, two, three, purl—in worldly matters, appears to me lamentable."
"I often think, Sister Phœbe," said Miss Vesta, timidly, "that it is her interest in little things that keeps Aunt Marcia so wonderfully young."
"My dear Vesta," replied Miss Phœbe, impressively, "at ninety-one, with eternity, if I may use the expression, sitting in the next room, the question is whether any assumption of youthfulness is desirable. For my own part, I cannot feel that it is. I said something of the sort to Aunt Marcia the other day, and she replied that she was having all the eternity she desired at that moment. The expression shocked me, I am bound to say."
"Aunt Marcia does not always mean what she says, Sister Phœbe."
"My dear Vesta, if she does not mean what she says at her age, the question is, when will she mean it?"
After a majestic pause, Miss Phœbe continued, glancing at her other hearers: