The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-02-04

bhohhE
time-stained face and caught it's musty
odor, she seemed to realize again the
very body of her lost love and for the
first time in all the years the fountains
of her sorrow were broken up and h
sobbed her tired heart out over the old
valentine.
Is there a dead-hearted m in all
Gods beautiful world, / wonder, who
would not weep again, if she could,
over some of life's following symbols
symbols Of love gone by, of passion
cooled-who would not feel almost as
if in the recovery of her tears she had
found Joy again?
If Miss Jemima had not found Joy,
she had ut least found her heart again
and sorrow. Her life had been for
so long a weary, t~reeless plain that in
the dark depth of the valley of sorrow
ing, she realized, es something only
from sorrows deeps poor mortals may
know it, the possible height of bliss.
For the first time since the separa-
ton, she clasped the valentine to her
bosom and called her lovers name over
and over again, sobbing il, without
hope, as one In the death agony. But
such emotion is not Of death. Is ii not
the rebirth of feeling? So it was with
Miss Jemima, and the heart-stillness
that had been her safety during all
these years would never be hers again.
There would never again be a time
when her precious possession would
not have a sweet meaning to her-when
1t would not be "a tangible embodiment
OF the holiest thing her life had known.
From this time forward, as an Offset
to the budding a about her,
Miss Jemima would repair for refuge
and a meager comfort TO that which
while in it's discolored and fading face
It denied none of life's younger ro-
nance, still gave her her own.
The woman Of forty never realizes her
years in the presence of her contem-
poraries. Forty women Of forty might
easily feel young enough TO scott at the
bald head, and deserve to be eaten by
bears-but thirty-nine with a budding
maid for fortieth scoffer-never.
Miss Jemima, in her suddenly real
lied young-love setting, had become TO
her own consciousness, old and of a
date gone by. Aunt Jemima'' was
naturally regarded by her blooming
rephews and nieees, as we'll as by their
iDtimates who wore their incipient
mustaches still within their conscious
top lips or dimples dancing in their
rudy cheeks, quite in the same cate
CORY as Mrs. Gibbs who was sixty, or
any of their aunts and grandmothers
who satserenely in daguerreotype along
the parlor mantle.
There is apt TO come q time in the life
OF the live single woman of forty-if
she be alive enough-when In the face
OF even negative and affectionate DIS
p~aragement, she is moved TO declare
herself.
Perhaps there be some who would
say that this declaration sayors of
earth. Even so, the earth Is the Lords.
II is one thing TO be a'fower pasted in
a o and quite another 20 be the bud
a maiden wears-one thing 20 be To-
day and another TO be Yesterday.
One thing, indeed, IL was 20 own a
yNhONt liult-SNdlueQ valentine, and
quite a different n 10 be of the
dimpled throng who crowded the Simp-
kinsville post Office on Valentines day.
II reckon them young ones would
think IL was perfectly re-dic'logs IF I
was to git a valentine at my time of
life" Miss Jemima said, aloud. 10 her
looking glass one morning. IL was the
day before ST. Valentines of the year
following her day of teers.
But I'll show EN- she added. with
some resolution, as she turned to her
bureau drawer.
And she did show them. On the next
day a great envelope addressed 20 Miss
Jemima Martha Sprague came in with
the package Of lesser %favors, and Miss
Jemima suddenly found herself the in
teresting center of q new intercst--nn
interest that after having rcvolved
about her awhile blew OFT i'm suspicion
toward every superannuated bachelor
or widower within a radius Of thirty
miles Of Simpkinsyill~,