is glad that she still
has the power to please.

Drifting.

He soon feels quite at home with her and grows more venturesome. She
feels her youth renewed, and they drift into {43} closer relations.
She salves her conscience with the thought that she is keeping him out
of harm's way. She makes no secret of the disparity between them,
though she may avoid the cold fact of figures. He fondly thinks she
will never grow old. Such a connection may be the salvation of an
unstable youth, especially if she does not let him marry her. She may
make a man of him, a good husband for a girl young enough to be her
daughter. She will not tell him to go and marry the girl, if she is in
earnest, as such a course would only call forth his protests of undying
devotion to herself; but she will imperceptibly let him see that she
is no mate for him, and he will think he has found it out for himself.
He may feel a little ashamed at leaving her, but she will make it easy
for him, and perhaps give a sigh of relief that she has been saved
from making a fool of herself.

The Dark Side.

For the woman who marries a man much younger than herself there is the
inevitable picture of later life to be faced. The ridicule of society
will be felt if it is not heard. The advance of age is relentless and
will make her an old woman when he is just in his prime. She may pray
for death to come and set him free, or she may paint her face and wear
a golden wig, accentuating the ruthless lines round her tired eyes;
but if they live long enough both husband and wife will suffer.

The Old Man who Courts Youth.

"The older we get the younger we like them!" was a favourite saying of
an old fox-hunting squire I used to know. There are old men who seem
to have lost but little of youth's vitality, and whom many a girl
would be proud to marry. There are others--and it seems like an act of
sacrilege to let any young life be linked to what remains of theirs.

The old man disarms suspicion by his fatherly attitude, and the
beginnings of courtship are made easy by the latitude allowed to his
years. His experience stands him in good stead. An old unmarried man
has generally either a very {44} good or a very bad reason for being
single. The girl who marries her grandfather's contemporary will
probably regain her freedom while still in her prime; but she cannot
calculate beforehand what price she will have paid for it.

The real love of an old man must have much