Master of the Vineyard

Tales of a Mirror

Across the table, the light shone full upon Alden's face, but, man-like, he had no fear of it. Madame noted, with loving approval, how it illumined the dark depths of his eyes and showed the strength of his firm, boyish chin. Each day, to her, he grew more like his father.

"A penny for your thoughts," he said.

Madame sighed. "It seems so strange," she replied, after a pensive interval, "that I should be old and you should be young. You look so much like your father sometimes that it is as though the clock had turned back for him and I had gone on. You're older now than he was when we were married, but I need my mirror to remind me that I'm past my twenties."

"A woman and her mirror," laughed Alden, helping himself to a crisp muffin. "What tales each might tell of the other, if they would!"

"Don't misunderstand me, dear," she said, quickly. "It's not that I mind growing old. I've never been the unhappy sort of woman who desires to keep the year for ever at the Spring. Each season has its own beauty--its own charm. We would tire of violets and apple-blossoms if they lasted always. Impermanence is the very essence of joy--the drop of bitterness that enables one to perceive the sweet."

Over the Breakfast Cups

"All of which is undoubtedly true," he returned, gallantly, "but the fact remains that you're not old and never will be. You're merely a girl who has powdered her hair for a fancy-dress ball."

"Flatterer!" she said, with affected severity, but the delicate pink flush that bloomed in her cheeks showed that she was pleased.

"Will you drive to-day?" he asked, as they rose from the table.

"I think not. I'm a hot-house plant, you know, and it seems cold outside."

"Have the new books come yet?"

"Yes, they came yesterday, but I haven't opened the parcel."

"I hope they won't prove as disappointing as the last lot. There wasn't a thing I could ask Rosemary to read. I'm continually falling back on the old ones."

"The old books are the best, after all, like the old friends and the old ways."

Alden walked around the room restlessly, his hands in his pockets. At length he paused before the window overlooking the vineyard, on the other side of the valley. The slope was bare of snow, now; the vines waited the call of Spring.