AN OLD MAID.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1061, 15 April 1882, Page 4

AN OLD MAID.

We frequently meet, in quiet home e cles, kind, gentle, unobtrusive women who, in some unobtrusive way ' exercise wondrous power over the circle in winch they move, and to whom every member of that circle looks with love and respect. I'he bloom of youth has possibly faded from their cheeks, but there lingers round form and face Something dearer than that. Outsiders call a woman of this type “an old maid.” Well, it is true, sl/e i« unmarried aitd alone. Perhaps the years of maiden life were spent in self-denying toil, which was too engrossing to listen even to the call of love, and she grew old too soon in the care of mother or sister and brother. Now., in those latter years, she looks back calmly oca some halfcherished hopes once attractive of husband and child, but which long, long ago she gave up for present duty. So to dav, in her loneliness, who shall say that she is not beautiful and dear. She is not soured by disappointment; the mid-day or afternoon of her life is as full of kindly sympathies and gentle deeds. Although unwedded, hers has been no fruitless life. It is an almost daily wonder to us why some men are married, and not a less marvel why many that we see are not. But this we know, that many and many a family circle would lose it brightest ornament and it best power were maiden sister or maiden aunt removed ; and it may bless the Providence that has kept them from making glad some husband’s home.