The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1885-10-31
AUNT MADELINE.
Preserving a Sweet Disposition
Through Lies Adversities.

"Gad! she's the only really beautiful
old woman ] ever saw"
The speaker was one of group OF
men who stood on the steps of church
one Sunday morning few years ago in
fair city of which we all know.
The group had apparently been dis
cussing the woman whose appearance
called forth the exclamation. / fol
lowed the direction of their looks and
found ample warrant for the emphatic
utterance which had overheard.
The association of old age with I'm.
common womanly beauty in one person
/ is,rare enough to excuse the curiosity
that impelled me to learn this woman's
history. l will not. therefore, offer any
apology for what the reader, and posi-
bly, the lady herself, may regard as an
impertinence. 1t is fact that / did
learn the story of her life, stranger
though l am in the city that is her
home. 1t is not thrilling tale. There
is in it not one essentially dramatic in
cident Yet it moves me to deeper
emotion and stirs within me a loftier
admiration than the story of many a
life that genius has snatched out of the
common for Immortality.
Aunt Madeline (for so she is called by
those who love her) would smile in mild
reproof if any one were to say to her,
You are beautiful many years
have come and gone since she gave
much thought for herself Hers is a
two-fold beauty, being made up of those
singular graces of person which at
tracted the notice of the group at church
on that Sunday morning and the higher
graces OF life that is consecrated to
others without flourish or pretense OF
self -abnegation.
l shall first try to tell how she ap-
peared from my own point of view.
The narrative proper shall be in the
words OF the pastor. to whom / am
bound for it, as nearly as lean set them
down.
The figure is tall and the carriage
graceful. She walks like one accus-
toned to free exercise. Her attire is
undeniably elegant. The least practical
observer of such things may see at a
glance that it came from the hands of a
fashionable maker. l determine there
fore. that she is not too poor to crafty
her natural woman's taste for daintiness
OF dress. Her face quite battles my
powers of description. 1t is the face of
sixty years. That have learned; but
when looking into it one does not think
OF its years. l can not say that it con-
forms to any established standard of
beauty, having neither pretty" chin
nor the soulful eye" of which we hear so
much in verbal portraits of beautiful
women. Nevertheless am ready to
stake my judgment on the general prop
osition that it is one of the loveliest faces
that was ever seen out of dreams. The
nose, must say, is of perfect mold; the
hair is a pure white mass arranged in a
Grecian coil at the back. parted in the
middle and falling in fieecy waves over
the temples, half covering the ears and
forming truly artistic frame for the
never-to-be- forgotten face.
She speaks to a young girl at her side,
and her smile discloses a mouth full Of
natural teeth. whose whiteness time has
not touched and whose perfect symme-
try is unbroken.
Her skin is clear and fresh-an elo-
quent tribute to right living and sign
of freedom from those vanities of women
on which the fortunes of nostrum makers
are built.
One can not doubt that she is an old
woman, but her years are years of peace,
Of purity, Of sweet piety, of wholesome
restraints. do not marvel that her face
is glorified.
AUNT Madeline was one of two Sis
tiers. said my friend, the pastor. in be-
ginning the recital which am to repro
duce. Her father was a politician.
and an honest man. He loved truth for
its own sake, and though he filed MANY
offices he died poor, leaving his mother
less daughter nothing in the way of for
tune except the modest home in which
they were born and reared. Madeline
was twenty and Ethel. her sister. fifteen.
when they were called to face the world.
A livelihood must be made for both.
and it was clear enough that only one
of them could undertake the dubious
task. The child Ethel assuredly was
not equipped forit. Medicine alone must
roll the heavy stone up the hill.
with what resolute courage and