The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-11-27

the Old Girl discuss the merits of an entree.
and laugh ct the tender maiden who dislikes
Madeira. Above all, she fights against the love-
ton she has m missed BY succession Of pets.
There is q sly humor in the way In which she
comforts love-lorn Ophelia by the story of her
sorrow over her favorite tabby, and how q gra-
cious Providence brought her through it. There
is charming irony In the legacy Of her last lap
dog to the wooer who has wooed her for half Q
century. But her sympathies are far from STOP
ing short at tabbes and lspdogs. She pours out
her passion for pets on the scapegrsce nephew IN
the Guards. and on the meek curate at the par
sonage. She turns the one into q roue and the
other into q clerical fop. On the clergy indeed.
the Old Girl delights TO show forth her power.
Sometimes she likes to snub them. We once
knew an Old Girl who took mp her abode ct Q
bishops house with the simple design OF perse-
cutting young deacons. II was delightful to
watch her as che caught them in the freshness Of
their zeal, lowered them into the revelation OF
their hopes and plans, and then Informed them
and never knew much good come of new brooms.
IL was the very helplessness of these young
Levtes that made the game so perfectly diverting,
as she induced them TO read the pious little
tracts che wrote for Paternoster Row, or to chat
with her on the lawn. or to take her down TO din
ner, and then in the very moment OF their highest
ecstacies, entertained an archdeacon by breaking
them on the wheel. Sometimes the Old Girl pre-
fers to rout the clergy up. She sees that they 90
make surel they have been attended to. She
tastes the port wine and the soup that the curate
has left. She takes notes during the sermon, and
sends in the morning score Of doubtful passages.
with tina. the WI. %
she has kindly annexed. She watches over the or
thodoxy of his vestments, and circumvents
dawning tendency towards preaching In q surpce
by the seasonable gift of new silk gown.
The most eminent example Of this sort Of cleri-
cal supervision which we remember to have met
with was Mrs. Hannah More Those who have
read the biography OF that very eminent and
typical Old Girl. will remember the terror she
dIffused throughout the clergy Of the West,
how fox-huniing ceased and port wine re-.
tired beneath the table, how she made cir
cults OF the churches that she might catechise
the preacher in the vestry, how, when her
clerical victim bsrrcaded himself In his study, she
called up the servants and prayed for his CONVEX
sion in the hall. Hannah Mores have rather gone
out of fashion just now, or rather they have
walked over into the opposite camp. The mother
superior is the Old Girl of the new movement. The
business the Kindness, the severity. the humors,
the pettiness, the eccentricities, the real good
sense and warm-heartedness Of old girlhood, re-
ceive their conservation under the veil and tue
poke bonnet. host Of little services of little
bells tinkling at odd moments invest with an air
OF piety the waste of Q day. Scandal becomes
obedience when the sister Ia pledged to reveal all
to the motherly ear; despotsm becomes dsci-
pine when il is halIowed into rule; prudery
becomes purity when 1t retires from the world
into its CELL This is not, perhaps, the highest aim
OF woman, or the sublime consummation which at
first sight it seems to be- but at any rate it is bet
ter than mere unreleved tittetsttle or the bitter
bigotry that fights for the last trick over the card
tables of Cheltenham or Bath. a.. Fl.
But, after all, extremes Ike these are but the
fringes of old girlhood-extremes into which il
plupges when 1t reused into activity that is not
its own. Kind, good.tempered. little sentimental
little prosaic, the really Characteristic stmss-
phere of an Old Grill the atmosphere of rest. The
ample form, the yet ampler folds of her silken
robe, give promise Of largeness and federation
and good humor which the energetic woman Of
married life can seldom afford. Schoolboy run
to her for tafy; schoolgirls pour into that sym
pathzing breast the raptures and despairs Of their
earliest love; and weary men, tired OF the stress
and racket of life, somehow like to come there
too, to leave behind them all the movement and
ambition of their existence without and to find ut
any rate In one circle the quietude and repose
which they find nowhere else. 1t is the memory
Of such pleasant resting places in the journey Of
life that makes rs whisper our ReqfiescGt in
Pace over the grave Of the Old Girl.