THE OLD MAID.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3139, 27 August 1892, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE OLD MAID.

As the unmarried sister of a family how ineffably useful is Bhe whom it was once the fashion to sneer at as an old maid ! Whenever she is wanted, there she is, and her married sisters and brothers often say they do not know what they would do without her. She is at the bedside of the sick, and she takes the place of the governess when this young lady goes homo for her holidays. When the parents of any of these young broods wish to go abroad together, and thus renew their love time by a second honeymoon, the unmarried sister goes down to their place to keep house and look after the children till they return. She passes her blameless life in active service now of one kind and now tff another. Friend, helper, and adviser of so many others, she has no time to brood over the disappointments which may have desolated her own youth; and less inclination to find a bitter solace to her pain in ill-feeling or ill-words against the more fortunate and the younger. She does not, slander, and she does cot gossip ; she invents no malevolent stories, and propagates no cruel reports. Free |from the bonds of doty, she is all the more tied to those of affection, and voluntarily gives what she is'not bound to bestow. She is a grand and lovely feature in modern society and the home—and what, pray, would become of the aged father or mother without this old maiden daughter to care for them and watoh over them?— Mrs Lynn Linton, in Chambers' for April.