OLD MAIDS.
We might say “maiden ladies!”—but wish to redeem two plain monosyllables from a certain undefinable stigma that they have borne too long. Old implies years, and years imply wisdom; why should we despise the one and not the other? Why, unless it be that the word old, when coupled with maid, is held up as a bugbear to frighten girls into hasty and injudicious marriages; or is perverted into another term for a shrivelled, vinegar-faced spinster, in whose nature the milk of human kindness has been soured by disappointment, and turns to acid every sweet that it comes in contact with. Words being but signs of ideas, if such is the apparition conjured to the mind of any by the phrase old maid, we cannot wonder that it seems formidably odious. To us, very different associations are connected with it: the stigmatized name seems almost sacred, conveying to the mind, as it does, the image of a pure, patient, doing, and enduring spirit, well nigh divested of the selfishness that, innate, controls the infant, the child, the belle, and even the wife and mother—that ideal of perfected woman!—in short, the embodiment of disinterestedness.
And who that will take off the glasses of prejudice, look around, and call up recollections of domestic life either at home, or in other homes, can fail to discover some female form and face—possibly attenuated and wrinkled by time and care—moving about the house from morning till night, ever bent on some errand of good to its inmates: now nursing the sick; now contriving some delicacy for the table, or to gratify the juvenile appetite; now bravely leading on to the fight a soap and water regiment, at that semi-annual internal revolution called house-cleaning, herself in the thickest of the fray; now arranging wardrobes for the Spring and Autumn comfort of all the household—save herself; now remaining through the heat and noxious atmosphere of a summer in the city, to keep the house in safety, while its proprietor, children, and even servants are enjoying cool sea-breezes, drinking at fountains of health,
