"One ought to be as old as one feels--and I feel quite twenty-one!" Ewen Hooper shook his head.
"That's all wrong.

One should be young--and taste being young, every moment, every day that one can.

I wish I'd done it--now that I'm getting old." "You're not old!" cried Nora.

"You're not, father! You're not to say it!" And kneeling down by him, she laid her cheek against his shoulder, and put one of his long gaunt hands to her lips.
Her affection was very sweet to him, but it could not comfort him.

There are few things, indeed, in which the old can be comforted by the young--the old, who know too much, both of life and themselves.
But he pulled himself together.
"Dear Trotty Veck, you must go to bed, and let me do my work.