Here I am the old-maid aunt. Not a day, not an hour, not
a minute, when I am with other people, passes that I do not see myself
in their estimation playing that role as plainly as if I saw myself in
a looking-glass. It is a moral lesson which I presume I need. I have
just returned from my visit at the Pollards' country-house in
Lancaster, where I most assuredly did not have it. I do not think I
deceive myself. I know it is the popular opinion that old maids are
exceedingly prone to deceive themselves concerning the endurance of
their youth and charms, and the views of other people with regard to
them. But I am willing, even anxious, to be quite frank with myself.
Since--well, never mind since what time--I have not cared an iota
whether I was considered an old maid or not. The situation has seemed
to me rather amusing, inasmuch as it has involved a secret willingness
to be what everybody has considered me as very unwilling to be. I have
regarded it as a sort of joke upon other people.
But I think I am honest--I really mean to be, and I think I am--when I
say that outside Eastridge the role of an old-maid aunt is the very
last one which I can take to any advantage. Here I am estimated
according to what people think I am, rather than what I actually am. In
the first place, I am only fifteen years older than Peggy, who has just
become engaged, but those fifteen years seem countless aeons to the
child herself and the other members of the family.
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