HENRY Ardmore felt in better and better condition. This was mainly because of his jogging, prescribed after the EKG he took in 1974, to combat a somewhat too high cholesterol count. So he had been running up and down the roads outside of Boulder, Colorado, where he taught history at the University. He jogged contentedly with a greater sense of well-being, elasticizing veins and arteries and taking off excess weight. The only thing wrong was that whereas the previous winter had been positively balmy on certain days—Mrs. Ardmore had even worn pedal pushers one February afternoon—this winter had turned hard and stormy, and he had to give up the jogging completely. He had just about decided to go ahead and buy an exercise bicycle when his wife bought it for him at Christmas.

Mrs. Ardmore was slightly amused by the spectacle of her 54-year-old husband wheezing and pumping over hill and dale in a corner of their basement. She commended herself, however, for never laughing out loud. Not that she didn't believe exercise was good, especially for a sedentary man, and almost as important as diet. But she could not really believe that exercise had to be as consistent as a rigorously controlled menu or that it could not be skipped for a season. She made allowances for her husband's fanaticism, that grim masculine determination she knew so well. And far from laughing out loud, she would not be suspected of a smile. Nevertheless, sometimes in those first days, she would open the basement door'and sing down.

"Isn't your mile up, Henry? Don't try for any records!"