While the bubbles were yet
sparkling on the brim, the doctor's four guests snatched their glasses
from the table, and swallowed the contents at a single gulp. Was it
delusion? even while the draught was passing down their throats, it
seemed to have wrought a change on their whole systems. Their eyes
grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened among their silvery
locks, they sat around the table, three gentlemen of middle age, and a
woman, hardly beyond her buxom prime.
"My dear widow, you are charming!" cried Colonel Killigrew, whose
eyes had been fixed upon her face, while the shadows of age were
flitting from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak.
The fair widow knew, of old, that Colonel Killigrew's compliments
were not always measured by sober truth; so she started up and ran
to the mirror, still dreading that the ugly visage of an old woman
would meet her gaze. Meanwhile, the three gentlemen behaved in such
a manner as proved that the water of the Fountain of Youth possessed
some intoxicating qualities; unless, indeed, their exhilaration of
spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness caused by the sudden removal
of the weight of years.
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