, and creeds even. They have very
little any longer to conceal; that is, in regard to things that should be
thought about and talked about at all. They are not afraid to be gay, and
to have enthusiasms. At sixty and eighty a refined and well-bred woman is
emancipated in the best way, and in the enjoyment of the full play of the
richest qualities of her womanhood. She is as far from prudery as from
the least note of vulgarity. Passion, perhaps, is replaced by a great
capacity for friendliness, and she was never more a real woman than in
these mellow and reflective days. And how interesting she is--adding so
much knowledge of life to the complex interest that inheres in her sex!
Knowledge of life, yes, and of affairs; for it must be said of these
ladies we have in mind that they keep up with the current thought, that
they are readers of books, even of newspapers--for even the newspaper can
be helpful and not harmful in the alembic of their minds.

Let not the purpose of this paper be misunderstood. It is not to urge
young women to become old or to act like old women. The independence and
frankness of age might not be becoming to them. They must stumble along
as best they can, alternately attracting and repelling, until by right of
years they join that serene company which is altogether beautiful. There
is a natural unfolding and maturing to the beauty of old age. The mission
of woman, about which we are pretty weary of hearing, is not accomplished
by any means in her years of vernal bloom and loveliness; she has equal
power to bless and sweeten life in the autumn of her pilgrimage. But here
is an apologue: The peach, from blossom to maturity, is the most
attractive of fruits. Yet the demands of the market, competition, and
fashion often cause it to be plucked and shipped while green. It never
matures, though it may take a deceptive richness of color; it decays
without ripening. And the last end of that peach is worse than the first.

THE ATTRACTION OF THE REPULSIVE

On one of the most charming of the many wonderfully picturesque little
beaches on the Pacific coast, near Monterey, is the idlest if not the
most disagreeable social group in the world. Just off the shore, farther
than a stone's-throw, lies a mass of broken rocks. The surf comes leaping
and laughing in, sending up, above the curving green breakers and crests
of foam, jets and spirals of water which flash like silver fountains in
the sunlight. These isle