But on occasion the flames would rise and burn for a moment with their old-time ardour.

The poem 'After Glow' was penned one night just following a visit with a young woman, Jeanette, only daughter of Honourable and Mrs.John Barclay, whose birth is celebrated elsewhere in this volume under the title 'When the Angels brought Jeanette.' The day after the poem 'After Glow' was composed I was sitting in the harness shop with the poet when the conversation turned upon the compensations of age.

I said: 'Sir, do you not think that one of our compensations is that found in the freedom and the rare intimacy with which we are treated by the young women?
They no longer seem to fear us.

Is it not sweet ?' I asked.

Our hero turned from his bench with a smile and a deprecating gesture as he replied softly, 'Ah, Colonel--that's just it; that's just the trouble.' And then he took from a box near by this poem, 'The After Glow,' and read it to me.