"Yes," said Miss Semaphore reflectively, "I suppose it would be better; but we can consider that to-morrow, and now I am quite tired. It is time for us both to go to bed."
The sisters duly undressed and sought repose, but for a long time none came. The future was too full of bewildering possibilities. Each felt that she ought not to let her mind dwell on what might never come to pass. Mrs. Geldheraus might be an imposter, the Water of Youth a fraud. Still, supposing—there was no harm in supposing—supposing both were genuine, what a delightful prospect. To be at once young and experienced; could anything surpass it? Pitfalls might be avoided, amusement sought, courses of conduct followed after a fashion impossible to anyone who was eighteen or twenty for the first and only time in life. To get all one's chances over again, and to be assured of missing none of them, what luck! what unexampled good fortune!
Rosy visions of what they would do intruded on both of them, but we grieve to state that the wildest and flightiest of these visions were those of the elder Miss Semaphore. Were her eyes or those of her sister ever to light on these lines, were there a
