er, after the fashion of those whose confidence
has been caught napping once. We never knew whether Nellie discovered the
truth or not. If Frank denied it, it would not affect matters with her if
the world rang with it. Her idolatry has a certain blind stubbornness in
it which I should not care to beat against.

Bronson does not stand as straight as he did when I first knew him. Rachel
says he has "a scholarly stoop." But she knows, and I know, that something
besides law-books and parchment has taken the elasticity out of his step.

Many years have gone by since I became an Old Maid. I want to call my
Alter Ego's attention to this fact gently but firmly, because I have an
idea that she still considers herself "only thirty," and that she thinks
she has just begun to be an Old Maid. Whereas she is old and so am I. I
do not mind it at all. Neither does she; it is only that she had not
realized it. We have so much to think about more important than our stupid
ages. People have grown used to seeing us about, and we like the same
things, and keep going at about the same pace and in the same road, and I
think we have come to be an Institution.

I have no worries which I do not borrow from my married friends. I keep up
with the fashions; my clothes fit me; my fingers still come to the ends of
my gloves; I feel no leaning towards all-over cloth shoes; I have not gone
permanently into bonnets. I have tried to be a pleasant Old Maid, and my
reward is that my friends make me feel as if they liked to have me about.
I am not made to feel that I am _passe_. One's clothes and one's feelings
are all that ever make one _passe_.

Nevertheless, I have turned my face resolutely towards the setting sun. I
am resting now. I have given up struggling against the inevitable. That is
a privilege and an attribute of youth. I feel as though I were only
beginning to live, now that I have passed through the period of turmoil
and come out from the rapids into gently gliding water. There is so much
in life which we could not see at the beginning, but which grows with our
growth and bears us company in the richness of evening-tide. I have
learned to love my life and to cultivate it. Who knows what is in her life
until she has tended it and made it know that she expects something from
it in return for all her aspirations and endeavors? Even my wasted efforts
are dear to me.

"'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,
And ask them what r