`` Dance with me , Clara , '' cried Colonel Killigrew . `` No , no ! I will be her partner , '' shouted Mr. Gascoigne . `` She promised me her hand fifty years ago , '' exclaimed Mr. Medbourne . They all gathered round her . One caught both her hands in his passionate grasp , another threw his arm about her waist , the third buried his hand among the glossy curls that clustered beneath the widow 's cap . Blushing , panting , struggling , chiding , laughing , her warm breath fanning each of their faces by turns , she strove to disengage herself , yet still remained in their triple embrace . Never was there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship , with bewitching beauty for the prize . Yet , by a strange deception , owing to the duskiness of the chamber and the antique dresses which they still wore , the tall mirror is said to have reflected the figures of the three old , gray , withered grand-sires ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a shrivelled grandam . But they were young : their burning passions proved them so . Inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow , who neither granted nor quite withheld her favors , the three rivals began to interchange threatening glances . Still keeping hold of the fair prize , they grappled fiercely at one another 's throats . As they struggled to and fro the table was overturned and the vase dashed into a thousand fragments . The precious Water of Youth flowed in a bright stream across the floor , moistening the wings of a butterfly which , grown old in the decline of summer , had alighted there to die . The insect fluttered lightly through the chamber and settled on the snowy head of Dr. Heidegger . `` Come , come , gentlemen ! Come , Madam Wycherly ! '' exclaimed the doctor . `` I really must protest against this riot . '' They stood still and shivered , for it seemed as if gray Time were calling them back from their sunny youth far down into the chill and darksome vale of years .
They looked at old Dr. Heidegger , who sat XXXXX his carved armchair holding the rose of half a century , which he had rescued from among the fragments of the shattered vase .
about among beneath by for in into on through to