A Woman's Age.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 5905, 29 March 1894, Page 3

A Woman's Age.

Is it worth a woman's while to be inaccurate about her agel Does she not rather lose nowadays by lessening the number of years'? Assuming that her object hitherto in setting back the hand of Ttma has been to render herself more attractive in the eyes of the opposite sex, it must be obvious to close observers of the men and manners of to-day that it is not the maiden of "bashful fifteen" nor the girt of sweet one and twenty who finds favor in the sight either of the gilded youth or the men of the world. The threshold of womanhood no longer invites them ; sweet seventeen is out of date, immaturity is not attractive. It fe nowadays only the woman who has "arrived " who can fascinate the weary, pessimistic youth of the period; it is only the experienced matron who, understanding the faults and follies of men, can render herself a sufficiently reasonable companion to him when he comes to years of discretion. The "bread-and-butter" miss, the comparatively inexperienced maiden, nay, even the very young matron, Mb hopelessly " out of it" at present. It ra the hour of maturity, and the woman n«s triumphed over the girl. She may now be anything over thirty to hold J w *y. provided always that she keeps nerself thrifty in heart and face. She must look attractive, she must have the power to attract. She must possess tact and judgment, and then she can snap Nr tinkers at Time, and boldly set "town what she likes on the census paper. At all events she need no longer dread we attainment of her third decade, for it w then that her reign begins. Not until Men does she bSgin to understand the management of man. He does not want w be regarded as a schoolgirl's ideal, to Jwe on Miss and kisses and eternally play the j«une premier. He wants companion- ; 3 "»p, he wants to have his faults recognised and openly discussed, and he knows 'hat with her ripened experience the woman will not expect too much of him nor invest him with a halo of romance, neither has she mere matrioional designs u P"i him. So has she outrivalled her younger sister, oven her own daughters, »"« th U s need she no longer fear the awing of the census and the revelation of not age.-:Udy'3 Pictorial.