Yet it is no unprofitable task to take one of these doleful creatures and set Fancy resolutely at work to brighten the dim eye , and darken the silvery locks , and paint the ashen cheek with rose-color , and repair the shrunken and crazy form , till a dewy maiden shall be seen in the old matron 's elbow-chair . The miracle being wrought , then let the years roll back again , each sadder than the last , and the whole weight of age and sorrow settle down upon the youthful figure . Wrinkles and furrows , the handwriting of Time , may thus be deciphered and found to contain deep lessons of thought and feeling . Such profit might be derived by a skilful observer from my much-respected friend the Widow Toothaker , a nurse of great repute who has breathed the atmosphere of sick-chambers and dying-breaths these forty years . See ! she sits cowering over her lonesome hearth with her gown and upper petticoat drawn upward , gathering thriftily into her person the whole warmth of the fire which now at nightfall begins to dissipate the autumnal chill of her chamber . The blaze quivers capriciously in front , alternately glimmering into the deepest chasms of her wrinkled visage , and then permitting a ghostly dimness to mar the outlines of her venerable figure . And Nurse Toothaker holds a teaspoon in her right hand with which to stir up the contents of a tumbler in her left , whence steams a vapory fragrance abhorred of temperance societies . Now she sips , now stirs , now sips again . Her sad old heart has need to be revived by the rich infusion of Geneva which is mixed half and half with hot water in the tumbler . All day long she has been sitting by a death-pillow , and quitted it for her home only when the spirit of her patient left the clay and went homeward too . But now are her melancholy meditations cheered and her torpid blood warmed and her shoulders lightened of at least twenty ponderous years by a draught from the true fountain of youth in a case-bottle . It is strange that men should deem that fount a fable , when its liquor fills more bottles than the Congress-water . -- Sip it again , good nurse , and see whether a second draught will not take off another score of years , and perhaps ten more , and show us in your high-backed chair the blooming damsel who plighted troths with Edward Fane . -- Get you gone , Age and Widowhood ! -- Come back , unwedded Youth ! -- But , alas ! the charm will not work . In spite of Fancy 's most potent spell , I can see only an old dame cowering over the fire , a picture of decay and desolation , while the November blast roars at her in the chimney and fitful showers rush suddenly against the window . Yet there was a time when Rose Grafton -- such was the pretty maiden-name of Nurse Toothaker -- possessed beauty that would have gladdened this dim and dismal chamber as with sunshine .
It won for her the heart of Edward XXXXX , who has since made so great a figure in the world and is now a grand old gentleman with powdered hair and as gouty as a lord .
Fane chasms day death-pillow dimness elbow-chair left right sick-chambers years