tate, fluttering and hovering now and then, as if on the point of deserting the weak and worn body that had been its tenement for so long.
And no wonder. Born near the beginding of one epoch-making war, she was on the point of seeing another brought to an end. The republic wanted but twelve years to round out its century. Hers lacked but thirteen to complete it. A historian eager for facts that give warmth and color to history might have gathered from her lips an account of many remarkable events and episodes that time has given over to oblivion. Of recent and passing events her memory took small account, but of matters relating to the past she could talk by the hour, and with a fluency that was out of all proportion to her ability to deal with the events of the day.
Mr. Shacklett, her husband, was not so old by several years, and he was better preserved physically, but his mind was quite as feeble, and his memory more unstable, if such a thing could be. If he stayed out of bed a quarter of an hour after taking his toddy at night, he betrayed an almost uncontrollable
