W. B. Maxwell 
Spinster of This Parish 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. It had been an odd impulse that made little Mildred Parker seek counsel and advice, or at least sympathy, from Miss Verinder in the first great crisis of her young life. The imperious necessity of opening her heart to somebody had of course lain behind the impulse, and Miss Verinder, although really only an acquaintance of Mildred’s parents, had been unusually kind and friendly to Mildred herself; but now, sitting in the drawing-room of Miss Verinder’s flat, listening to Miss Verinder’s pleasant emotionless voice, watching Miss Verinder with methodic care put away small odds and ends in an antique bureau, she felt the huge incongruity that there would be in speaking of love to an old maid of fifty.<br><br>I won’t be a minute, said Miss Verinder.<br><br>I am not in the least hurry, said Mildred quite untruthfully.<br><br>Waiting and watching, she thought that fifty years of age is nothing nowadays – if you are not an old maid, and if you decorate yourself properly. Some women of fifty are still dangerously attractive – they act leading parts on the stage, they appear in divorce cases, they marry their third husbands.