something the matter with them, to the
stultification of the doctor's prescriptions, and the
confusion of science. The missionaries would
have little to eat, and nobody to eat them
up in the South Seas, were it not for the old
ladies. Exeter Hall in May would be a
howling wilderness, but for the old ladies
in the front seats, their umbrellas, and
white pocket-handkerchiefs. And what
Professor Methusaleh and his pills, Professor
Swollow with his ointment, Doctor
Bumblepuppy with his pitch-plaisters, and
Mr. Spools, M.R.C.S., with his galvano-
therapeutic blisters, would do without
old ladies I'm sure I don't know: Yea,
and the poor-boxes of the police-courts
for their Christmas five-pound notes, the
destitute for their coals and blankets, the
bed-ridden old women for their flannel-petticoats
would often be in sorry plight but for
the aid of the old ladies, bless them! At
every birth and at every death there is an old
lady. I have heard that old ladies are sometimes
seen at courts. It is whispered that
old ladies have from time to time been found
in camps. Nay, irreverent youths, hot-headed,
inconsiderate youngsters, doubtless—bits of
boys—have sometimes the assurance to hint
that old ladies have, within these last thousand
years, been known to sit at the councils
of royalty, and direct the movement of
armies, the intricacies of diplomacy, and the
operations of commerce.

But these are not my old ladies. Search
the wide world through, and bring before
me legions of old ladies, and I shall still
be asking my old question.

No. I will be positive and give my self-
asked question a negative, once for all.
There are no old ladies now-a-days. You
know as well as I do that there are no children
now; no tender rump-steaks; no goodfellows;
no good books; no chest tenors; no
clever actors; no good tragedies, and no old
port wine. The old ladies have followed all
these vanished good things. If they exist at
all, they exist only to that young generation
which is treading on our corns and pushing
us from our stools, which laughs in its sleeve
at us, and calls us old fogies behind our backs;
to that generation which yet believes in the
whisperings of fancy, the phantoms of hope,
and the performance, by age, of the promises
of youth. The old women have even
disappeared. Women there are, and old, but no
old women. The old woman of Berkeley;
the old woman of Tutbury who so marvellously
supported herself by suction from
her pocket-handkerchief; the aerostatic old
woman who effected an ascent so many times
higher than the moon; the old woman who
lived in a shoe, and frugally nurtured her
numerous offspring upon broth without
bread; the delightful old woman, and member
of the society for the prevention of
crutlty to animals—Mother Hubbard—who
so tenderly entertained that famous dog,
though, poor soul, she was often put to
it, to find him a bone in her cupboard;
the eccentric old woman who, is it
possible to imagine it, lived upon nothing but
victuals and drink, and yet would never be
quiet (she evanished from my youthful ken
at about the same time as the old man of
Tobago—who lived on rice, sugar, and sago);
the terrible old French woman, La Mère
Croquemitaine who went about France with
a birch and a basket, wherewith to whip
and carry away naughty little girls and boys,
and who has now been driven away herself
by the principals of genteel seminaries in
the Avenue de Marigny, Champs Elysées;
the marvellous, fearsome old women of
witchcraft, with brooms, hell-broths, spells, and
incantations; the good and wicked old women
of the Arabian Nights and the Child's Own
Book; fairy godmothers; hump-backed old
women sitting by wellsides; cross old women
gifted with magic powers, who were
inadvertently left out of christening invitations,
and weaved dreadful spells in consequence;
good women in the wood; old women who
had grandchildren wearing little Redriding-
hoods and meeting (to their sorrow) wolves;
Mother Goose; Mother Redcap; even Mother
Damnable (I beg your pardon);—all this
goodly band of old women have been swept
away. There are no types of feminine age left
to me now. All the picturesque types of life
besides seem melting away. It is all coming
to a dead level: a single line of rails, with
signals, stations, points, and turntables; and
the Cradle Train starts at one fifteen, and
the Coffin Train is due at twelve forty-five.
—An iron world.

Somewhere in the dusty room, of which the
door has been locked for years, I have a
cupboard. There, among the old letters—how
yellow and faded the many scored expressions
of affection have grown! the locks of
hair; the bygone washing-bills:—"one pare
sox, one frunt;" the handsome bill of
costs (folio, foolscap, stitched with green
ferret) that came as a rider to that small
legacy that was spent so quickly; the miniature
of the lady in the leg of mutton sleeves;
the portraits of Self and Schoolfriend—Self
in a frilled collar, grinning; Schoolfriend in
a lay-down collar, also grinning; the rusted
pens; the squeezed-out-tubes of colour; the
memoranda to be sure to do Heaven knows
what for Heaven knows whom; the books
begun; the checkbooks ended; the torn
envelopes; the wedding cards with true lovers'
knots dimmed and tarnished; the
addresses of people who are dead; the keys of
watches that are sold; the old passports, old
hotel bills, dinner tickets, and theatrical
checks; the multifarious odds and ends that
will accumulate in cupboards, be your
periodical burnings ever so frequent, or your
waste paper basket system ever so rigorous:
among all these it may be that I can find a
portfolio—shadowy or substantial matters