They numbered not less than fifty in all and covered thirty-seven years, from a daguerreotype of Miss Ludington at the age of twenty-five to a photograph taken the last month.

Between these two pictures there was not enough resemblance to suggest to a casual observer that they were pictures of the same individual.
To trace the gradual process of change from year to year during the intervening period, was an employment which never lost its pensive fascination for Miss Ludington.

For each of these faces, with their so various expressions, represented a person possessing a peculiar identity and certain incommunicable qualities--a person a little different from any one of those who came before or after her, and from any other person who ever lived on earth.
As now the grey head and the golden head bent together over one picture after another, Miss Ludington related all she could remember of the history and personal peculiarities of the original.
"There is, really, not much to say about them," she said.

"They lived very quiet, uneventful lives, and to anybody but us would, doubtless, seem entirely uninteresting persons.

All wore black dresses, and had sad faces, and all found in their thoughts of you the source at once of their only consolation and their keenest sorrow.