He watched her in shocked dismay. Then steadied himself and said, "Adorable-"

"Oh." She turned. "You startled me. I didn't hear you come in, dear."

"I'm sorry. May I have that?"

"Have what, Woodrow?"

He went to her, bent down and picked up the silver hair. "This. Beloved, every hair of your head is precious to me. May I keep it?"

She did not answer. He saw that her eyes were filled with tears. They started to overflow. "Dora, Dora," he repeated urgently, "why are you crying, beloved?"

"I'm sorry, Lazarus. I did not intend for you to see me doing this."

"But why do it at all, Dorable? I have far more gray hair than you."

She answered what he had not said, rather than what he did say. "Dearest, I can't help it that I know when someone is-well, 'fibbing' I must call it since you have never lied to me."

"Why, Dorable! My hair is gray."

"Yes, sir. You did not mean to surprise me, I know...and I did not mean to snoop when I cleaned your study. I found your cosmetics kit, Lazarus, more than a year ago. It's sort of a fib, isn't it?-when you do something to make your crisp red hair look gray? Something like what I do, I suppose, when I pluck hairs that are gray."

"You've been plucking gray hairs since you learned that I have been aging myself? Oh, dear!"

"No, no, Lazarus! I've been plucking them for ages.Much longer than that. Heavens, darling, I'm a great-grandmother-and look it. But what you do-careful as you are with it- and kind as it is for you to try-and I do appreciate it!-doesn't make you look my age; it just makes you look prematurely gray."

"Possibly. Although I'm entitled to gray hair, Dorable-my hair was snow-white not many years before you were born. It took something much more drastic than cosmetics-or plucking hairs-to make me look young again. But there never seemed to be any reason to mention it."

He stepped up to her, put an arm around her waist, took the mirror and tossed it on the bed, turned her toward the window., "Dora, your years are an achievement, not something to hide. Look out there. Farmhouses right up to the hills and many more we can't see from here. How many of our Happy Valley people are descended from your slim body?"

"I've never counted."

"I have; more than half of them-and I'm proud of you. Your breasts are baby-chewed, your belly shows stretch marks-your decorations of honor, Adorable One. Of valor. They make you more beautiful. So stand straight and tall, my lovely, and forget about silver hairs. Be what you are, and be it in style!"

"Yes, Lazarus. I don't mind them myself-I did it to please you."

"Dorable, you can't help pleasing me, you always have. Do you want me to let my own hair go back to natural? It's not dangerous for me to be a Howard-here in Happy Valley with my own kin all around me."

"I don't care, darling. Just don't do it on my account. If it makes it easier for you-First Settler and all that-to look a little older, then do it."

"It does make it easier-when I deal with other people. And it's no trouble; I know the routine so well I could do it in my sleep. But, Dora-listen to me, darling. Zack Briggs will call at Top Dollar sometime in the next ten years; you saw John's letter. It's not too rate to go to Secundus. There they can make you look like a young girl again if that's what you want, and tack a good many extra years on, too. Fifty. Maybe a hundred."

She was slow in answering. "Lazarus, are you urging me to do this?"

"I'm offering it. But it's your body, most dear one. Your life."

She stared out the window. " 'More than half of them,' you said."

"With the percentage increasing. Our kids breed like cats. And so do their kids."

"Lazarus, truly we settled this many, many years ago. But it is even more so now. I don't want to leave our valley even to visit the outside. I don't want to leave our children. Nor our children's children, nor their children. And I certainly would not want to come back looking like a young girl...to watch the births of our great-great-grandchildren. You're right; I've earned my gray hairs. And now I'll wear them!"

"That's the girl I married! That's my durable Dora!" He moved his hand up higher, cupped a breast and tickled a nipple. She jumped, then relaxed to it. "I knew your answer, but I had to ask. My darling, age cannot wither you, nor custom stale your infinite variety. Where other women satiate, you most make hungry!"

She smiled. "I'm not Cleopatra, Woodrow."

"Wench, that's your opinion. But what's your opinion against mine? Rangy Lil, I've seen thousands and thousands more women than you have-and I say that you make Cleopatra look homely."

"Blarney tongue," she said softly. "I'm sure you've never had a woman turn you down."

"True only because I never risk being turned down; I wait to be asked. Always."

"Are you waiting to be asked? All right, I'm asking. Then I'd better start dinner."

"Don't be in such a hurry, Lil. First I'm going to dump you on that bed. Then I'm going to flip your skirt up. Then I'm going to see if I can find any gray hair at that end. If so, I'll pluck them for you."

"Beast. Scoundrel. Lecherous old goat." She smiled in delight. "I thought we weren't going to bother any more with plucking gray hairs?"

"We were speaking of hair on your head, Great-Grandmother. But this other end is as young as ever-and better than ever-so we'll most carefully pluck any gray from your pretty-your pretty brown curls."

"Sweetest old goat. If you can find any, you're welcome. But I've been plucking that end even more carefully than my scalp. Let me slip this dress off."

"Wups! Hold it. That's Rangy Lil, the horniest bitch in Happy Valley, always in a hurry. Get your dress off if you wish, but I'm going to find Lurton and tell him to saddle up Best Boy and go beg supper and a shakedown from his sister Marje and Lyle. Then I'll be back to pluck those disgraceful gray curls. Supper will be late, I'm afraid."

"I don't mind if you don't, beloved."

"That's my Lil. Darling, there isn't a man in the valley who wouldn't grab you and try to find another valley if you gave him the slightest encouragement-that includes your own sons and your sons-in-law--every male here down to fourteen."

"Oh, not true! Blarney again."

"Want to bet? On second thought we won't waste time plucking gray hairs at either end. When I get back from telling our youngest son to get lost for the night, I want to find you wearing just rubies and a smile. Because you're not going to cook supper; we're going to scrape up a cold picnic instead and take it and a blanket up on the roof and enjoy the sunset."

"Yes, sir. Oh, darling, I love you! E.F.? Or F.F.?"

"I'll leave that choice to Rangy Lil."

(Circa 39,000 words omitted)

Lazarus opened the bedroom door very quietly, looked in, looked inquiringly at his daughter Elf-a strikingly beautiful middle-aged woman with flaming red curls shot slightly with gray. She said, "Come in, Papa; Mama's awake."

She stood up to leave, taking with her a supper tray.

He glanced at it, subtracted in his mind what was still on it from what he had seen leave the kitchen on it-got a sum which was too near zero to please him. But he said nothing, simply went to the bedside, smiled down at his wife. Dora smiled back. He leaned over and kissed her, then sat down where Elf had been. "How is my darling?"

"Just fine, Woodrow. Ginny-no, Elf. Elf brought me the tastiest supper. I enjoyed it so much. But I asked her to put my rubies on me before she fed me--did you notice?'

"Of course I did, beautiful. When did Rangy Lil ever eat supper without her rubies?"

She didn't answer, her eyes closed. Lazarus kept quiet, watched her respiration, counted her heartbeats by watching a pulse in her neck.