The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-06-15
CUPID AND GRAY HAIRS.

The pretty gray-haired lady sighed.
 q never really had a fair chance at
 partridge before," she said, indicating her well-filled plate with 9 pathetic
 smile.
 q have a fellow-feeling," she contin- ued, flor that old gentleman who said that the wing of the chicken was
 doubtless the very incest portion of all, but that he had never tasted it. When
 he was young the old people were SUD-
 posed to monopolize it. and now that
 he had grown old, he said, it had to be
 reserved for the young. My dear," he lamented, I have never tasted the wing of the chicken!' Tragic, wasn't it?'' F. Tt was dastardly!" the fine looking white mustached gentleman on her right hand stifled a snort of indigna- tion. >t 's@A>S
 Nothing gets away from the young
 sters of to-day" he growled. I'm only
 bare fifty-nine, as you know
 "Yes-I remember you were always just five years ahead" the sweet faced
 little lady semiled sympathetically.
 "Fifty-nine years, Mrs. Merrydew, and to judge from the attitude of the young fledgelings in this hoteI one | would say I was a relic of the stone age-belonged somewhere .unclassiffed with the pyramids mad Rameses IT, his genial face took on a sudden mul-
 berry hue; "dastardly, I repeat! You can't plead the most trivial sensation of indigestion nowadays, even just a plain, ordinary headache, but it's put
 down to incipient senility-I meet it on all sides, can tell you"
 q know--I know" responded his fair Listener appreeiatively. And that rosy checked girl from the academy prefaces every other remark to me with In your day. It does come hard cer-
 tainly when one is still in fair state of preservation, and can yet maintain
 ordinary conversation"
 "Conversation, humph! merely the | last expiring efforts of once powerful intellect, my dear madam quoted the l elderly gentleman savagely.
 l The pretty little widow giggled out l right at this-she. could look very l charming when a smile dispelled her naturally pensive expression. Really, it's a comfort to meet you again, after
 so many years,' she confided; "let's go over to that window seat, where we can syrnpathize. feel quite as young
 as I did twenty-five years back-and | L,,4 ;te,o o1y otyos.e. ID
 unreasoning prejudice regarding gray
 haid-it's public opinion. concerning it
 that harrows up your soul"
 "Gray hair is most becoming over a youthful face," put in the gentleman with a gallant bow, while they both l withdrew to a friendly alcove. "Oh, l thank you for not saying still youth ful! That still is such a paralyzing word," the little lady shuddered. 'They
 might as well say: Mrs, M. still re-
 tains her intelligent expression. It is | all very unnerving." .... l He chuckled and moved his chair a trifle closer.
 I q say this judgment of age by years
 is the most outrageous procedure ever, isn't it now? I maintain t:hat*it is l primitive and unworthy of our so-called | civilization. One might as well judge by rheumatism, of which babes in arms are our most prominent opponents in these days. Why, that young cub out wonder at tennis is barely a self-con- ! fessed twenty-four, and yet his man.
 ma (the stout, be-diamoned person with three chips) is sore put to it to ex- 1 tricate him from his considerable and
 flourishing crop of wild oats Irregular horse chestnuts they are, too, I be- | lieve)! My dear young friend, you and
 I might be styled mere babes in the
 wood by comparison with this world | weary youth. And syet"-the white I mustache went upward with a twist of l fierce exasperation-" wanted tc
 know what colleges they had in my day