The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-12-27
THE LOST OLD LADY.

hair when not in active service; low shoes,
which she calls JEFF ersons,' and in her
hand a 'retioule, which holds her knit
ting and always some peppermint drops
for her grandchildren. This old lady has
a pink color upon her smooth cheeks and
o smile upon her lips for every child
whom she meets"
"What charming old lady, and how
sad that she should be losS!' the reader
exelaims, only to glance down the column
| and learn that the missing lady is not the
aged relative of any person in particular,
but that the above is the announcement of
the loss of the type of old ladyhood that
blessed the childhood and youth of the
writer. Lovely in the retrospect, as in the
reality, was this universal grandmother,
who, guiItiess of false fronts or of the
! vagaries of fashion, was always to be
found by her own fireside.
Here she turned the heels of successive
/ stockings to be worn by the rising genera
ton and sweetened their lives with half
way Fegales of gingerbread and molasses
candy, all undismayed by the discomfort
ing admonitions of parents, who, in view
of the increase Of dyspepsia, or the de-
crease of vitality among modern children,
have issued a stern edict against all such
| toothsome delights of youth.
Adults of today, who have survived
this older and more genial dispensatiOn,
can recall childhood spent under the
beneficent influences of the grandmother
and the candy shop. They may prove by
unanswerable logic that the growing child
! is better without the indulgent grand
mother and that the world has gained by
the exchange of the old lady of the f1reside
for the active woman of society and of
| affairs, whose middle age is prolonged in
definitely, but who really believes them?
Without entering into the merits of this
| question, in which as mere logicians they
undoubtedly have the best of the argu-
ment, we still find ourselves unreasonably
Ianenting the passing away of a serene
and comforting figure from the back
| ground of our too restlessly progressive
age, the passing away of some one to go
out from, some one to come home to, one
around whom tall sons are proud to rally,
/ and one to whom married daughters re-
| joice to return with their offspring, feeling
sure of patient and sympathetic listener
to the most monotonOus nursery details.
One day in the busy crowd upon one of
the thoroughfares of q great city found
myself following a tall, spare figure in
plain bonnet, mantilla, reticule, umbrella
and all the other almost forgotten para
| phernalia of old ladyhood. There was
strange fascination about those severe and
unadorned outlines which in some indef-
mite manner carried with them an atmos-
phere of faroff childish days, with their
radiance of simple pleasures and sorrows
dimmed and Swallowed by distance.
I walked behind the figure, then beside
it, longing to peer beneath the Gheltering
old fashioned bonnet to see whether the
face of the wearer was grandmotherly and
| kind, just as the sparkish young blades of
! the last century must often have longed to,
and doubtless did sometimes, peep at tho
| pretty Quaker faces beneath their jealous
ly guarding screams of pasteboard and silk
that, hideous in themselves, only served to
make fair seem more fair.
The pursuit of a young and beautiful
maiden is a trite enough subject, although
it still forms the groundwork of most ro-
mances, but it has remained for modern
writer of fiction to choose for his theme
the trials and disappointments of an elder
| ly widoWer in search of an old lady to fill
his heart and cheer his f1reside.
The chief difficulties of the hero of this
ingenious tale, which appeared in a recent
English monthly, were the elusive nature
of his collar buttons and the irrepressible
and discouraging youthfulness of the Ia
dies whom he met at hotels and boarding
houses, the discouragement lying in the
fact that they made this modern CHlebS
appear old by contrast.
One night in the excitement of fire in
the hotel where he was stopping there
emerged from her apartment, in a monde
script costume of nightcap, scant petit
coat and fur cape, a genuine old lady,
with no youthful airs about her. The
progress of the fire was fortunately soon
arrested, but the lady's nerves, Jared by
the unwonted stir and anxiety, required
the gentle stiInulants of tea and synpa-
thetic companionship.
The former panacea was furnished by
her own tea service, which she had brought
into the hall for safety, while the latter
catholicon the enraptured widower WAS
happy to supply. A blissfu1 and all too
fleeing hour was spent over smoking cups
of tea, the presiding genius of the feast
never once causing her companion to feel
old by contrast. On the other hand, she
spread about her, even amid the confusion
and wreckage of the fire, a sweet and sat
isfying atmosphere of middle aged COM
fort and home cheer.
The pair parted friends, she to enjoy
what beauty Sleep might still be had,
he to dream of a home blessed with the
presence of a congenial and not too youth
full companion, but, alas, when Coelebs
mot the assembled household at luncheon
the next day, his friend of the fire and the
tea could not be found. She, feeling SEN
sitiYe on the score of the rather uncOnYen-
tional costume and circumstance of their
meeting, hesitated to address him, while
he failed to recognize the lady of his
dreams and of his brief acquaintance in
the youngish looking woman before him
in luxuriant frizzes, sailor hat and jaunty
gown.
Thus one happy household failed to take
its place among the homes of England,
and a lonely widower settled down to the
cherries life of a boarding house, where
the women were all painfully young, be
cause, - as the writer Of the story remarks,
"while realizing that boys will always be
boys, he failed to grasp the more impor-
tant fact that women will be girls to the
end of the chapter. "-Philadelphia Press.
General HancOck's Body.
The renewal of the attempt to remove
General Hancocks body to Arlington APP
pears to have excited something like in