A SPINSTER’S WOOING

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1649, 7 October 1903, Page 5

A SPINSTER’S WOOING

It is not to be denied that a rich old maid, who has accepted her age and her spinsterhood, has about the best of things as they go in life. She has, at once, all the financial independence of a man, and the privileges of a matron without her encumbrances, and may do pretty much as she chooses in a necessarily limited state of society. Miss Ashton belonged to this enviable class, and was wont to make the most of her opportunities. Her sister-in-law, and other critics, said that she abused them, but when they lifted an eyebrow over some quite impossible person or fad she had taken up, she. merely shrugged her shoulders. “At my -age, my dear,” she would say, “a woman may know anybody and hear all there is to tell,” which was one of the reasons, perhaps, that at her house you always found the most interesting people—people whom you might never meet elsewhere in society, but who were never banal or tiresome. In truth, Miss Ashton’s insistence on her age was a trifle premature. Her 45 years sat lightly upon her, and only showed a drift of gray in her abundant dark locks, and in giving to eyes and mouth that expression of sympathy and comprehension that is the final charm to a woman’s face. For the rest, she had a certain mature luxuriance of beauty that made younger women lock as pale and colourless as a spring daisy beside a gorgeous fall chrysanthemum. She had been one of the women to whom the flowering time of life came late. She had had a starved youth, without joy. without beauty, or anything that betlonged to her years, passed in slavish attendance on an old uncle. Then one day, when she had already girown into a mature woman, the Old man died, and she found herself not only free, but rich beyond her wildest dreams. It always seemed to Miss Ashton that she was born again, with the change of fortune, into a new personality, and a new world. She turned her back on the old life with all its hard and grinding ways, and with a frank paganism gave herself up to enjoying the hour. Rich foods, and luxuriant living did for bar bodv what travel and society did for her mind, and from having been angular, unbeautiful, without grace of person or manner, she suddenly bloomed into a grand dame—daring, original, a little eccentric, perhaps, but with a fascination none denied. To enjoy a feast to the fullest, one must have starved. Certainy Miss Ashton drained her cup of pleasure to the verv bottom. She had had enough of shadow, she would have nothing more but sunshine. She hated poverty, and she gave -with a generous hand to those about her. She adored cleverness, and so she surrounded herself only with those who amused and entertained her, and no social prestige was great enough to open her doors to a bore. It was in this way she came to know David Horton. He did not belong to the great world of fashion. He was merely a no-or inventor shabby as to clothes, but with great thoughts struggling for expression in his great brain. Shy as a school girl, h© was. too, and it took all of Miss Ashton’s tact to draw him into her charmed circle. Once there, however, and the barriers broken down, by her sympathy, the man showed her his whole

soul. He fell into the way of dropping in. in the quiet dusk, at the hour when she was oftenest alone, and, sitting before the. big fire in the library, he would tell her of his dream®, his hopes, and aspirations, and disappointments, while his 03 T es grew tender, and his voice to oh on that cadence that a man uses when ho talks to the woman he loves and trusts. Part of Miss Ashton’s power had always been that she understood other people—and hierseilf. She knew that for the first time in her life love had come to her, in all its beauty and glory. She knew equally as well., with a woman’s intuition, that David Horton loved heir, but she was absolutely certain he would never tell her of it, or ask her to be his wife. She had so much. He had so little, and his pride would not let him go empty handed as a beggar to the woman he adored. It was then that Miss Ashton proved that she had the courages of her conviction, and' made her resolution. "It isn’t as if I had had any springtime of life,” she said to herself. "I was cheated out of that, and I will not let myself be robbed of my happiness by a mere convention. So that night, sitting in his dingy room, bending over models and blue prints, David Horton was startled by the apparition of a tall woman, who dropped her rich fur cloak from her shoulders as she entered, and' moved slowly towards him. "Miss Ashton!” he cried, "you here!” She sank into a chair with a sudden faintness. "Yes,” she said, and then she added desperately: "I have a—a friend in trouble, and I wanted your advice. I have come to tell you her story. She is not a young woman, and she-has had a sad life, and has been very lonely. Always she has hungered and thirsted for companionship, without finding it. Lately something beautiful has come into her life. All the comprehension and understanding of which she dreamed. It is love. David, and she loves, not like a silly school girl, with a passing fancy for any handsome face, but with all the great love and passion of a woman who knows life, and has found her heart’s desire. Something has happened that makes her afraid she might lose this companionship, and she is in sore trouble and anxiety. When one has found a priceless jewel one wants to keep it, doesn’t one ?” "Yes,” the man answered her with white lips, and Miss Ashton hurried on, as if she were afraid to stop: "The barrier between them is so flimsy, David, just a little money, a little false position in society-—and .yet the woman is beating her heart up against it. and bruising and breaking it. Perhaps the man doesn’t understand'. _ Perhaps he doesn’t, realise how cruel it is to sacrifice her to Ms pride. David, what shall she do?” The man was trembling in every nerve. "It is for the queen to give,” he said, with his voice breaking over the words, "not for te suppliant to demand. Let her Lefll him that she loves him.” "Oil. David, you stupid,” she cried, holding out her hands to him, "I have, I have,” and in a moment more she wa.s in his arms. Hours later Miss Ashton turned to him a face grown strangely young, and timid, and fair. "David,” she said, solemnly, "if you ever tell I had to propose to you. I’ll—l’ll deny it.”