nts"
are likely to be "on the keen jump" from the time his lordship enters
the house until he leaves it!

But to return to the "superfluous woman,"--although we cannot
literally return to her because she does not exist. Of the "old maid"
of to-day, it is safe to say that she has her allotted plane of
usefulness. She isn't the type our newspaper brethren delight to
caricature. She doesn't dwell altogether upon the subject of "woman's
sphere," which, by the way, comes very near being the plane of the
earth's sphere, and she need not, for her position is now well
recognised.

She doesn't wear corkscrew curls and hideous reform garments. She is a
dainty, feminine, broad-minded woman, and a charming companion. Men
are her friends, and often her lovers, in her old age as well as in
her youth.

Every old maid has her love story, a little romance that makes her
heart young again as she dreams it over in the firelight, and it
calls a happy smile to the faded face.

Or, perhaps, it is the old, sad story of a faithless lover, or a
happiness spoiled by gossips--or it may be the scarcely less sad story
of love and death.

Ibsen makes two of his characters, a young man and woman who love each
other, part voluntarily on the top of a high mountain in order that
they may be enabled to keep their high ideals and uplifting love for
each other.

So the old maid keeps her ideals, not through fulfilment, but through
memory, and she is far happier than many a woman who finds her ideal
surprisingly and disagreeably real.

The bachelor girl and the bachelor man are much on the increase.
Marriage is not in itself a failure, but the people who enter unwisely
into this solemn covenant too often are not only failures, but bitter
disappointments to those who love them best.

Life for men and women means the highest usefulness and happiness, for
the terms are synonymous, neither being able to exist without the
other.

The model spinster of to-day is philanthropic. She is connected, not
with innumerable charities, but with a few well-chosen ones. She gives
freely of her time and money in many ways, where her left hand
scarcely knoweth what her right doeth, and the record of her good
works is not found in the chronicles of the world.

She is literary, musical, or artistic. She is a devoted and loyal club
member, and is well informed on the leading topics of the day, while
the resources of her well-balanced mind are always at the service