The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1910-10-22
SPINSTERS
COME INTO
THEIR own
Old Maids Are No Longer
Wall Flowers in Popu-
lar Fiction.
Become Main Characters
Two Old Ladies Supply Fun
and Mystery in win
dow at the White Cat"
Become Main Characters

Novelists have always stunned the
old maid. Romance and realism have
clustered about the maiden of bash
full fifteen, the widow of fifty, the
thrifty housewife. But they have
pa sed up the maiden lady as impos-
Sible. Where they had to drag her
in, they pursued her. like Balzac, with
cynical distaste and disdain.
1t took an American author to dis
cover that the spinster may be made
in fiction what we all know her to be
In real life-the salt Of the earth
Mary Roberts Rinehart, herself a
Wife and mother, delights in the por-
in them her most amusing character
izations. Everyone remembers Miss
Rachel in "The Circular Staircase"
so prim ana proper, with her cork
screw. curls, her tongue, spiced with
caustic wit, bringing the reader a
merry laugh in the midst of thrilling
mystery, her natural timidity yielding
at the crucial me- nent to her intrepid
force of character. Everyone has
laughed over Aunt Selma in when
Man Man Marries and the play made
TWO IN NEW BOOK.
In THE Window at the White Cat"
her latest and best story of fun and
mystery, and today the most popular
book in America, Mrs. Rinehart gives
are two old maids in it, and they are
more entertaining than n tWo-ringed
circus. They are the center of the
merriment and the bewilderment. The
of her art upon the Maitland sisters
the younger of whom is IS. AS often
happens in life, Jane. for that was
her name. was tyrannized over by the
older, Letitia, until she seldom made
any claim of having soul of her
own.
''The Maitland ladies'" says the
young lawyer who is the hero of the
story. were reputed to be extremely
wealthy, and as they never spent any
homestead was one of impeccable
housekeeping and unmitigated gloom
| had taken dinner at Bellwood be-
fore, and the memory was not hilar-
ious. Miss Letitia was deaf, but
chose to ignore the fact. With superb
indifference she would break into the
conversation with some wholly alien
remark that neceSsitated a reassem-
bling of ones ideas, making the meal
series of mental gymnastics.
You look like a fool in that cap,
Jane volunteered Letitia. What's for
dessert?
Ice cream, and you said it would
be all right poor Jane shrieked. If
you drink cup of water after it, it
won't hurt you
iUuiO. i<ttitid SfldpDtu Il Ill 1ltt
going to freeze my stomach and then
thaw 1t out like a drain pipe. Tell
Heppie to put my ice cream on the
StoVe."
JANE WANTS A SWITCH.
OF course there's a beautiful
young woman to serve as the object
Of the young lawyers romantic In
clinations. But, after all, the real
heroine of THE Window at the White
Cat is Miss Jane.
The reader fairly claps his hands
when timid little Jane breaks her fet-
tiers and courageously seeks her free
dom at one bound in trip to Europe
For, as she writes in q letter found
many days after. when she had been
given up as murdered: Il am 65. and
II is time | have a chance to do the
things ! like" In her girl-like glee
she declares she is going Ito buy a
hat. instead of a bonnet, and clothes,
switch; Margery, 1 have wanted a
switch for twenty years. j suppose |
and pretty things underneath, and a
am growing frivolous in my old age.
but am going to have silk Innings In
my clothes before l die" Dear Jane!
Every mothers daughter of us will
hope she realized her dream.