Sixteen The Age Of Bloom, But Real Beauty Found Ten Years Later

Young Iadle9 wlio fear to cross the "Old Muid'" clialk mark mny luid comfort in tliis f rom the Chicago News: - The longevity of girlhood.according to the etliics of society, has increased in the lUt dozen or lifteen years. A girl is not nn "old maid" now until she is past tliirty. Once she was an "oklinaid" at twenty-five. She is a girl now fur live yeurs beyond tliat age. It is even deomed not only possiblu but probuble tliot soine man will liud lier fair and loveable after tliat advunced age and she marry. In the better circles glrla do not enter society at as early an ftge M tliey did when the tag ''old maid " was nfflxed to tlicm if tliey didn't marry by the time tiiey were twenty-five. Tlie las.s of llxteen, eighteen or even older, is in school ooi u pied with her mnsic and other studies now. and not receiving beans alone in the harlor evenings. She is gettini ready to be a young miman. She is not atteinpting to be one before 8he is. It is a timn honored fallacy tliat gtrll renen mental maturily in f d vanee of boys. The average lad of Slxteen or eighteen Is quite as mitured in intellect aa the girl at tliat age. Slie is no more tltted at tliat stage of grovvtli to assume the roll of womanliood than lie of manbood. Theie are exoeptional inatances of astonishing development at an early day witli both btyi and (tirft tliat ent it It' them to rank as men and women. Hut thia is not the average with humanity, and the girl who does not attempt to be a "young lady" until she is twenty-one is far better off than she who starts out In tliis endeavor two or tliree yearsyounger. The largcly increasing mimber of independently aituated women who ptefer to live unmarried, is llkcly to work a declded change in the status of the "oid maid." Tlie elderly girl who prefers the luxuriea or comforts of her father's home to (baring a flat or a boardlnr-house with a salaried young man is multiplying so rapidly that she is bound to have ii show in thlngs generally, tlie sanio aa younger maidens and her man-led sisters.