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An Old Maid.

to apply the ungallant appellation to sweet Miriam. Perhaps they are tongue-tied by that vague charm about her which half cheats one into the belief that she carries in her vestal bosom some mystical light, ("the lamp of human love,") and lets fall its radiance on the path she treads, on the hearth where she sits, on the face into which she gazes. Certain it is that all are strangely brightened by her presence.

Man recognizes the magic of a cheerful influence in woman more quickly, and more willingly, than the potency of dazzling genius, of commanding worth, or even of enslaving beauty. Thus men, in general, value Miriam's especial gift above the more brilliant endowments of her favored sisters.

In stature, Miriam is below the medium height. A form not voluptuously rounded nor charmingly fragile, but a neat, compact little figure, supple and light of motion. Not a single feature of her countenance can be termed beautiful, yet the whole face possesses a mobility, a capacity for rapidly varying expression, an indefinable harmony that produce the effect of beauty. Her white teeth sparkle between flexible lips, her black eyes dance and shine through jetty fringes, her dark hair, fine but not abundant, is knotted with peculiar grace at the back of an admirably balanced head.

Her dress is usually of some neutral tint, a sil-

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