The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-08-05
BY MARGARET E. sANosTER.


 BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER. (copyright. 1906, by Joseph B. Bonles.)
 Notwithstanding the general skepti- cism of young people on the subject, the fact is that almost the only senti- mentalists we have left are the old. Time Is a jester and he likes to play strange tricks by slight of hand. He has stolen the slender grace of wonder. substantial matron and given her a goodly store of avoidupois He has robbed her of the roundness and smoothness of glrlheod and left creases and crows feet to mark the years: but of one thing he has not ben able to defraud her. Deep in her heart there is spring of TO- nance that bubbles up with the same silver sound and sweet freshness that it did when she was a bride. and all though she may be a grandmother, she is more sentimental now than the pretty bride of the second generation.
 Many an old fellow whose name is known in the stock market and at whose beck the. world of finance changes place as children do in the game of stage coach, has an unsus- pected fountain of sentiment hidden ip his soul. He is shrewd. hard-head- ed and sagacious, but the soft bit of sentiment. is in. him stills and 1t re- spends 10 the teuen mustic and poetry, to the wait of perfume. or the sight of daisie sintJune. Such 2 nan will carry folded away in his vest pocket bit of fugitive verse or a faded photograph, the Kind that was formerly called a carte de yisite. The picture is old-fashioned, hut 1t brings back to him the memory of girl who died long ago. in the peace summer that followed our civil war.
 The old people watch with a certain sympathetic interest the love affairs of their juniors, and often resent and regret the obvious lack of sentiment shown by these. A yonng woman mar rIes a man who can give her. com fortabie home and relieves her from the drudgery of teaching or sewing, or the inconvenience of dependence on parents who have younger children to provide for To the sensible per- son who takes a discreet, common place view of life, it seems justi- liable proceeding eminentiy wise on the part of the young woman. Why should she ask for anything more than a solid foundation of respect and est sem on which to begin her mar ried life. The people of her own period are very apt to take this mat ter of fact view. Not so the elderly ladies who were wooed and won with ehivalrous ardor in the long ago. who know what real courtship means. who
 
 as a sanctuary, and who shudder at the thought of a profane foot cross ing that sacred threshold. They have had to part with many illusions on the road, but the one illusion that has remained to them pure reality Is Loves young dream.
 Watch people as they read the lat est passionate novel and listen to their criticisms and discussions The younger portion of the community wait with resignation, not to say ih- difference for the next number of the magazine in which the current serial shall begin, and resume it's exciting episodes. It broke off at a psycho- logical moment, To the white haired woman who read it, seated in her easy-ehair beside the window, the story was of breathless interest The people were not mere puppets. but liv- ing beings who had reached a climax of good or i'll fortune. and she proh- ably met them in her dreams for a day or two She it is who looks across the room at some one as old as her. self who was young when she was, and meets in his eyes the glance of comprehension that she fails to find in the younger faces about her.