Old lady

“ Kind and genial, as full of sunshine as of stories of the olden time, beloved by old and young, the evening of her life was truly beautiful. Many years have passed since I saw the dear old lady, and I do not know that she is now alive, but I do know that she has not been forgotten. ”

“ What is prettier than an old lady—except a young lady—when her eyes are bright, when her figure is trim and compact, when her face is cheerful and calm, when her dress is as the dress of a china shepherdess: so dainty in its colours, so individually assorted to herself, so neatly moulded on her? Nothing is prettier, thought the good Minor Canon frequently, when taking his seat at table opposite his long-widowed mother. ”

“ Decorous old age is always beautiful, and this dear old lady, in her dark dress and pure muslin cap scarcely less white than the hair it covered, formed a touching picture, as she stood in the shadow of her home, waiting—for her husband—and alas! ”

“ A nicer dressed old lady, or a more becoming black silk gown, you shall not see on a Sunday morning making her way to any country church in England. While she was looking so pleasant and demure,—one may say almost so handsome, in her old-fashioned and apparently new bonnet,—what could have been her thoughts respecting the red-nosed, one-legged warrior, and her intended life, to be passed in fetching two-penn'orths of gin for him, and her endeavours to get for him a morsel of wholesome food? ”

“ The old lady is, after all, intensely human, and lives to look upon life. ”

“ Under the influence of these her tired face grew composed, and there was a wishful, far away, fond look in her eyes, which made it not wonderful that the said old lady—apparently an acute old soul in her way—should watch her, as we do occasionally watch strangers in whom we have become suddenly interested. ”

“ If the Old Lady is a widow and lives alone, the manners of her condition and time of life are so much the more apparent. She generally dresses in plain silks that make a gentle rustling as she moves about the silence of her room ”

“ For all the rapture of life, for all its turmoils, its anxious desires, its manifold pleasures, and even for its sorrow and suffering, I bless and praise that anonymous old lady from the bottom of my heart. ”

“ They in their turn loved the kind little old lady—for she was getting an old lady now—who played with them so merrily, who entered into all their fun, who told them such pretty stories, who plied them with pennies and all manner of good and pretty things. ”

“ It is an antique convention that hurries off old age with decrepitude and care and quavering palsy. And it may be that the old gentleman is unamiable; that, his days of strenuousness fairly over, he becomes crabbed, a lover of snuff, and unpoetical. But the old lady is a creature of another quality. The refinements of age only enhance the femininity of her charm; to her, whimsicalities, delicate occupations, the fine lines that etch themselves expressively across her brow and about her mouth, are all vastly becoming. ”

“ The house is her own; and it, and everything about it, except the old lady herself, who looks a little older than she did ten years ago, is in just the same state as when the old gentleman was living. The little front parlour, which is the old lady’s ordinary sitting-room, is a perfect picture of quiet neatness ”

“ The apple-green of her dress and the blue-green of the trees—she made such a beautiful picture, and the old lady shook her head and sighed.
And one might imagine the old lady saying: When I was young I was as lissome as that, as pretty, had as eager a head. Time flies, and we grow old. Ah, the fine days of young womanhood!
But that was not in her mind at all: she shook her head because she knew the heartaches, the difficulties, the terrors the young girl must go through before she attained to the reward of women—wisdom and peace. ”

“ We whirl her away, we shout, we spin, we flow. Where have you been, old lady? We know your secret!— Voices jangle about her, jeers, and laughter. . . . She trembles, tries to hurry, averts her eyes. Tell us the truth, old lady! where have you been? She turns and turns, her brain grows dark with cries. Look at the old fool tremble! She's been paying,— Paying good money, too,—to talk to spirits. . . . She thinks she's heard a message from one dead! What did he tell you? Is he well and happy? Don't lie to us—we all know what he said. He said the one he murdered once still loves him ”

“ By what perverse magic, I a thousand times think, does such a very autumnal old lady have such a very vernal young soul? When I would remonstrate at times, she spins round on me with, “Oh, don’t you grumble, old man (she always calls me old man) , it’s I, young I, that keep you from stagnating.” ”

“ But she is a circumstantial old lady, communicative, scrupulous, leaving nothing to the imagination, harping on the smallest grievances, a village oracle and critic, most veritable, most identical, bringing us acquainted with persons and things just as they happened, and giving us a local interest in all she knows and tells. ”

“ I understand perfectly what he wants—I’ll do everything, be anything, I’ll be the most perfect wife. The old woman will adore me when she knows me—it’s too stupid of her not to see. Everything in the past’s over; it has all fallen away from me; it’s the life of another woman. ”

“ They had always had a kindly feeling towards the old lady, and this had been increased by her helplessness and by her evident unconsciousness of the manner in which the world was slipping away from her. ”

“ The present horror of anything elderly comes, probably, from the fact that the preceding generation went to the other extreme, young women retiring at forty into becapped old age. Knowing how easily our excitable race runs to exaggeration, one trembles to think what surprises the future may hold, or what will be the next decree of Dame Fashion. Having eliminated the “old lady” from off the face of the earth, how fast shall we continue down the fatal slope toward the ridiculous? ”

“ The worst of it is, that having a high regard for the old lady, he wants to make her a convert to his views, and therefore walks into her little parlour with his newspaper in his hand, and talks violent politics by the hour. He is a charitable, open-hearted old fellow at bottom, after all; so, although he puts the old lady a little out occasionally, they agree very well in the main, and she laughs as much at each feat of his handiwork when it is all over, as anybody else. ”

“ An old lady sat bonneted and shawled in the corner, with spectacles resting on the tip of her nose, watching with concealed merriment a group of young persons who were trying to manage something they did not understand, and evidently wishing her out of the way. ”

“ So great was the old lady’s power and influence that the Western woman did not dare to disobey, but had to submit in silence until her husband’s return home, when, I am glad to say, life once more became bearable to her. ”

“ What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's! How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative (and may every reader have a score of such) , what a kind good-natured old creature we find her! ”

“ The old lady that I have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, her tongue, after years of practice, in absolute command, whether for silence or attack. If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted to curse the malignity of age. ”

“ Well, suppose, again, that to-day a fine old lady, who has lived a full life, loved and married and borne her brood of children, and her children after her borne children, too, and some have lived and some have died—she has christened her quick and waked her dead, her own and her children's children—she's had great joys in her life, but mostly she's had great sorrows, and from out of her life has come much thought. ”

“ The old lady was one of those women, very numerous in the world, who make of religion a convenient chaperone for their intrigues and their affairs of gallantry. When they are old, and can scarcely venture any longer on their own account, they generously place their experience and their small talents at another's service, and willingly assist the intrigues of others. That is called lending the hand, and more than once the old lady had countenanced, through perfectly Christian charity, the secret interviews of sweet sheep with their tender pastor. ”

“ If it were left to me to fix the age at which I might be reckoned old, I might say after the expiration of a century, and, even from the little I had seen of things, I believe that some people esteemed themselves comparatively juvenile even then. Fancy men of all ranks and ages making love to a real old lady! ”

“ A very old lady who sat spinning.
Perhaps you will wonder how the princess could tell that the old lady was an old lady, when I inform you that not only was she beautiful, but her skin was smooth and white. I will tell you more. Her hair was combed back from her forehead and face, and hung loose far down and all over her back. That is not much like an old lady - is it? ”

“ Only after she’d got a little—well—feeble as you might say. Of course, she was never dangerous; she was the sweetest old lady. ”

“ If you call in the evening you will find her cheerful, but rather more serious than usual, with an open Bible on the table, before her, of which ‘Sarah,’ who is just as neat and methodical as her mistress, regularly reads two or three chapters in the parlour aloud.
The old lady sees scarcely any company, except the little girls before noticed, each of whom has always a regular fixed day for a periodical tea-drinking with her, to which the child looks forward as the greatest treat of its existence. She seldom visits at a greater distance than the next door but one on either side ”

“ One of the most beautiful women I know, whose hair is prematurely white, with an exquisitely picturesque effect of snowiness above the pink of soft cheeks, and the youthful light of deep grey eyes, was a little over forty when, talking one day with a comparatively new acquaintance, she was astonished to hear her say, “My husband says you are a dear old lady.” ”

“ Then, not her life alone, but that of the old woman, her hostess, is sacrificed. The old woman knows this, and trembles with fear. Even if she is brave enough to be faithful, her fears would betray her, should the house be searched. ”

“ Ladies are always noticing these little feminine details; they aid us greatly in that quick knowledge of character which men are apt to set down as intuition.
While I was thinking over these speculations, a step in the hall, and the rich, heavy rustle of those old silks that our grandmothers were so proud of, disturbed me. The door opened, and an old lady, very old indeed, came into the room.
I stood up involuntarily, for the person of this old lady was so imposing, that it exacted a degree of homage which I had never felt before. ”

“ You have had a very pleasant life, and do you think you have made the best of it? Your old age has been very pleasant."
"Ah! you acknowledge that I am old, then?" cried Lady Mary with a smile.
"You are old no longer, and you are a great lady no longer. Don't you see that something has happened to you? It is seldom that such a great change happens without being found out."
"Yes; it is true I have got better all at once. I feel an extraordinary renewal of strength. I seem to have left home without knowing it; none of my people seem near me. ”

“ It all comes of being so attractive, as the old lady said when she was struck by lightning. ”

“ She had thought, indeed, she ought to tell him that, and it threw her into a little tremor of excitement to do so. Yet, if she had been afraid he would show some irritation at this news, she was disappointed at the geniality with which he exclaimed:
"Why, poor old lady—she must be quite mature!" ”

“ The old lady finished her patriarchal days serenely, and when she was dying, begged that the order of her house might be in no wise disturbed by the event of her decease, but that 'the gentlemen would play their evening game of whist as usual'! ”

“ He fetched her here in one of our carriages, and took her home again, and she was quite pleased with the attention. A very fine-looking, very old lady is rather a pleasant sight, particularly here, where there are hardly any very young, or very old people. ”

“ But you must come and see his mother before you go.’
“Well, I went up to the house, and saw a fine, handsomely-dressed old lady. You see they weren’t likely to have any more, and that made them all the fonder of the boy. ”

“ Are you fond of children? Then I almost feel sure you would think so too. Not a moping child at all, or too clever, or anything to alarm one. Well, you know, little Connie, since ever we came in, has seen an old lady walking about the house."
"An old lady!" said Mary, with an involuntary smile.
"Oh, yes. I laughed too, the first time. I said it would be old Mrs. Prentiss, or perhaps the char-woman, or some old lady from the village that had been in the habit of coming in the former people's time. But the child got very angry. She said it was a real lady. ”

“ The truth was, that the good old lady had been obliged to make all her domestic servants turn out to complete the quota which her barony ought to furnish for the muster, and in which she would not for the universe have been found deficient. ”

“ But it is no light matter, is it, to pick out suitable stories for three old-fashioned old ladies with very decided views as to what is fitting and nice, and what not, when the books (and here is the real difficulty) were to be read aloud? For this meant of course that the three personalities had to be taken into consideration. Each book had to please, or at any rate not offend, an old lady who118 was of a practical managing turn, and an old lady who was herself a bit of a quiz (as all good novelists must be) , and an old lady who had Utopian dreams. ”