retain, a great respect for the married state, and for those of my friends who, from right motives, have entered into it. I believe, what I presume will not here be doubted, that it is an institution ordained by the All-wise Disposer of human affairs, for the promotion of mankind in general; but I think it was a part of that wise design that there should be Old Maids.

The first reason that I shall give in support of this opinion is, that they are not only very useful, but even extremely necessary; for how many homes are rendered happy, after the departure from them of sons and daughters into the wide world, by the continuance of the Old Maid! She is now to be the life, light and joy of those who would otherwise be sad and solitary. How many parents are cheered and consoled in the decline and departure of life, by her who remains to repay their care of her early years, by the constant and much-needed attentions which can only be rendered by the Old Maid! How many married sisters, when trial and sorrow come to their homes and hearts, look for help and consolation to one of their number who remains free from such cares, the ever-ready and sympathizing Old Maid! How many widowed brothers have with perfect confidence consigned their motherless children to the love and care of the trusty Old Maid! Oh! many a little orphan has never felt its mother's loss, while sheltered by the kindly affection of some soft-hearted Old Maid. And who is usually the nurse in sickness, the friend in affliction, the help in every time of need, but the Old Maid?

These have ever been her duties and her pleasures; but in later times old maids have taken a more conspicuous part. They form a large proportion of our authoresses; they are founders and pillars of antislavery, moral reform, and all sorts of religious and charitable societies; and last (though not least), in country towns, where no weekly sheet is published, they are extremely useful in carrying the news.

"For these reasons, I think we must all acknowledge that there is a great need of old maids; and this want has been provided for by the greater number of females who outlive the years of infancy than of males. Some assert that more are born; but at all events they do not die so easily. Of the males who arrive at years of manhood, some die on the high seas, or in battle, or in foreign climes, or in distant parts of their own land, where they have been attacked by disease, and died for want of the judicious care of an old maid. So that all will allow, there must be quite a surplus of the female sex, who can be nothing more or less than Old Maids.

"But all this reasoning in favour of them, goes directly against Old Bachelors; for I do not see that they are either useful or necessary, at least not more useful for remaining single (present company always excepted); and had they been needed, more males would have been allowed to arrive at years of bachelorship.

Having thus introduced myself, and shown the utility of the tribe to which I belong, I reveal it as my design, to furnish certain recollections of my younger days. They are chiefly recollections of simple country girls, the companions of my earlier years, of whom the greater

number are now wives and mothers. I shall care but little what opinions are entertained or expressed in relation to the style of composition, if the moral be remembered and regarded.

"BETSY."

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN OLD MAID.
"No. I.

"There was but one young lady in our village ;-I mean by this, that there was but one young female who did no work. The word lady has now a very indefinite signification. It means sometimes merely a female; sometimes a female distinguished from her sex by elegance of mind and appearance; and sometimes again, one whose claims to distinction are those of birth or wealth. But those of every class and character, who can continue to worry away their lives without being of any benefit to that vulgar herd,' the world in general, have a great desire to appropriate this cognomen to themselves; and as people are apt to designate others by the names which others assume, so those are often called ladies (par excellence) who do not work,

"Widow A. had but one pretty little daughter, and as she had also a pretty little house and farm, she thought these were very sufficient reasons for making herself a slave to her child. She early discovered that her little girl had a very delicate constitution; and instead of invigorating it by work and exercise, she pampered and nursed her, till she looked as though she was indeed born (to use her mother's expression) to be a lady.

Ruth A. had been sheltered from the morning breeze, the mid-day sun and the evening dew, till she was as pale and slender as the lily of the vale; and her little soft white hands would of themselves have been a sufficient guarantee for her claims to ladyship.

Now, though I in my young days was about as broad as I was long, with a face as round as the full moon, and cheeks as red as a peony, and owned a pair of hands which had been lengthened and widened, thickened and roughened, reddened and toughened, by long and intimate acquaintance with the wash-tub, scouring-cloth, and broomstick though I was as tough as a squaw, and could not be persuaded that I had a nerve about me, yet I never looked at Ruthy without blessing my stars that I was not a natural born lady.' I picked the prettiest flowers, and the earliest berries, and carried them to my genteel friend, because I thought her an object of pity; yet the widow A. was proud of an honour shared by no other mother in the village, and often regretted that she had not called her child Henrietta, or Georgiana, or Seraphina, or Celestina, or some such beautiful name. But she had been overpowered by the solicitations of her husband's mother, who wished to give her own name to her only grandchild, and had promised to bequeath to it her only silk gown, her best feather-bed, a string of gold beads, a great gold ring, and half a dozen little stubbed silver spoons. So Ruth, or Ruthy, (for we girls had reversed the usual method of familiarizing a name by shortening it,) grew up a perfect lady

in every thing but her old-fashioned name. She played on the piano, read a great deal of poetry, had delicate nerves, the dyspepsia, and long finger nails, and was in all such respects well fitted to be the mistress of a parlour.

"Although the sole object of her mother's devotion, though cared for, and watched over as few girls can be, she never appeared lively, and seldom in any degree cheerful. She had always the headache, or the toothache, or some other ache, which sent a frown across her fair brow, and that hilarity which is the result of health and vigour was never experienced by her. Her books were scribbled over with such quotations as, 'O, mother Earth, take back thy child;' and

'I am weary, I am weary,

"And again :

And now within my breast
There dwells but one, one only wish,
It is, to be at rest.'

'I know that soon my time must come,
And I be glad to go;

For the world at best is a weary place,
And my pulse is getting low.'

"Now all this sentimentality was not affected. It was an expression of her real feelings; for life could have but little of enjoyment for one who had spent it as she had done. I feel confident that Ruthy's presentiment of an early grave would have been fulfilled, had her mother's life been spared.

"When widow A. was taken suddenly and dangerously ill, and informed by her physician that there was no hope of recovery, her mind instantly reverted to the helpless child she must leave behind. That last sickness was embittered by self-reproach for the past, and dark forebodings for the future. She has no other friend,' said she, bitterly; ' and O, what will she do when I am gone?'

'It was in vain that Ruthy, whose every faculty was now for the first time roused to exertion, endeavoured to calm and comfort her; it was in vain that she constantly reiterated her assurance, that she should find many earthly friends, and that, even if she did not, still He who is the Father of the fatherless, and the orphan's protector, would surely be her God. Still the mother could not feel at ease, and when the widow was laid in her last home, there were many who repeated her last expression, What will become of Ruthy?'

"Her mother's foolish indulgence had almost beggared her; for the house and farm were already mortgaged, and Ruthy must maintain herself or get some one to maintain her. 'She could not dig, to beg she was ashamed;' so what did she do, but get married; and to one of the last men I should have thought she could have fancied. He was a great brawny, shaggy-headed widower, with not indeed seven heads and ten horns,—but with what I should have thought would have been quite as frightful to her, namely, seven children and ten cows. He had also

men-servants and maid-servants, oxen and horses, dogs, sheep and poultry, and all other appurtenances of a large farm.

That Ruthy could be spared from manual labour, I felt assured, but I thought that the care, noise and turmoil must soon kill her. I was at her wedding, and when I saw her stand beside that stout, roughlooking man, with a flush upon her cheek, which would have been unnoticed upon a complexion less delicate, I thought of a lamb covered with garlands, and laid upon the altar of sacrifice. For one moment there seemed to be a coffin before my eyes, and a sweet pale face was within it; and then I saw the grave of widow A., and an open one beside it. But I banished these fancies, and was gay with the rest.

Now that Ruthy has been a wife for many years, I can conceive of her reasons for marrying as she did. She had been a petted child, and now that she could be one no longer, she wished to find in a partner for life, one who, with the affection of a husband, should unite the doting fondness of a parent. She was deficient in energy of mind, and vigour of intellect; but she had strong affections, and it was through these that her character was to be renovated. She had discovered at her mother's sick bed, that she could act; and with increased action came the ability and desire to do more: and she felt confident, that in her companion she had found one who would excuse all deficiencies, when he saw them accompanied by endeavours to do well. A word of reproach, or laugh of derision, might wholly have discouraged; but she has never received it; and her husband's indulgence has been repaid by the warmest affection, and utmost eagerness to perform every duty of her station, in which she succeeds wonderfully.

I am now a sallow, withered old maid, but Ruthy's step is quicker and firmer, her eye brighter, and her cheek far more rosy than at the age of sixteen. She fears neither sun nor rain; she can make both butter and cheese, she has almost wholly given up playing on the piano, but she plays admirably upon the cook-stove, and is in all respects an excellent wife and a tender mother, both to her own children and to those of her predecessor. "BETSY."

We are surprised to find so just an estimate of the "Pleasures of Science," as is contained in the paper bearing that title, by one "whose thoughts are absorbed by the daily cares of a toilsome life." We give the conclusion of it :—

"No pleasures can be purer than scientific ones, except those of religion, and none but these are less subject to the vicissitudes of life.' A lover of science cannot regret the pleasures of youth, for a light is shed upon his path which brightens as the darkness of age comes on.' "Neither are these enduring pleasures less exhilarating than those of a transitory nature. I have heard of a geologist who travelled far to satisfy himself by observation respecting a theory which he had adopted; and when he came to the mountain which was to be the test, and his warmest hopes were realized, his joy was too great for utterance. And the great Swedish Naturalist who left his own loved country to view

the different beauties of other lands, when he first saw the yellow hills of Scotland, he knelt down and blessed God that he had made furze."

The second number wears more decided marks of its origin, by more frequent reference, direct and incidental, to the situation of the writers. The first article is entitled "Factory Girls," and is a spirited and sensible reply and remonstrance addressed to the editor of the Boston Quarterly Review, who had published some reflections upon them from which this sentence is quoted at the head of the paper: "She has worked in a factory is sufficient to damn to infamy the most worthy and virtuous girl." We quote one paragraph only :

"And whom has Mr. Brownson slandered? A class of girls who in this city alone are numbered by thousands, and who collect in many of our smaller towns by hundreds; girls generally come from quiet country homes, where their minds and manners have been formed under the eyes of worthy sons of the pilgrims and their virtuous partners, and who return again to become the wives of the free and intelligent yeomanry of New England, and the mothers of quite a proportion of our future republicans. Think for a moment how many of the next generation are to spring from mothers doomed to infamy! Ah, it may be replied, Mr. Brownson acknowledges that you may still be worthy and virtuous.' Then we must be a set of worthy and virtuous idiots, for no virtuous girl of common sense would choose for an occupation one that would consign her to infamy."

We give entire

THE PLEASURES OF FACTORY LIFE.

"Pleasures did you say? what! pleasures in factory life? From many scenes with which I have become acquainted, I should judge that the pleasures of a factory life were like angels' visits, few and far between,' said a lady, whom fortune had placed above labour. [Indolence is not above labour, but below it.-EDS.] 'I could not endure such a constant clatter of machinery, that I could neither speak to be heard, nor think to be understood, even by myself. And then you have so little leisure; I could not bear such a life of fatigue. Call it by any other name rather than pleasure.'

But stop, friend; we have some few things to offer here, and we are quite sure our views of the matter are just,—having been engaged as an operative the last four years. Pleasures there are even of factory life; and we have many known only to those of like employment. To be sure it is not so convenient to converse in the mills with those unaccustomed to them; yet we suffer no inconvenience among ourselves. But aside from the talking, where can you find a more pleasant place for contemplation? There all the powers of the mind are made active by our animating exercise; and having but one kind of labour to perform, VOL. IV. No. 15.-New Series.

C