Miss Singleton is in the “fallen leaf” age, for the sweet blossom-time of girlhood has long since passed her by, and she has now seen some thirty-five summers. Yet in many respects she is as young as ever, and when she goes out to a dance she has no lack of partners—and the best dancers too, mind you—while on the tennis court she is always in much demand. For she plays tennis with an activity and a style that would put “sweet seventeen” to the blush, and the rhythm and the vigour of her waltzing have outlived the practical admiration of almost two decades of partners. Indeed, not having the natural stress of motherhood to bear, like those women who are wives, Miss Singleton’s physical energy and need of active excitement still find vent in these pursuits, perhaps with more zest even than in the days of her girlhood. See her on the tennis court. She is completely absorbed in the game, mentally and physically, and any mistake on her own part, or bad stroke on the part of her partner, provokes her to irritability. It is something more than a mere game to her, it is the supreme life-interest of the moment. She must play up with all her might and main; for life is long and youth is fleeting, and while she can still run about, and make swift, sure strokes with her racquet, she can make-believe to herself that she is not getting _passée_; but to give up dancing and tennis would be to confess herself at once an old maid—horrible thought, and quite absurd. [Illustration] Why, look at her as she enters a ball-room. Perhaps there is just a suspicion of weariness and contemptuous discontent in her countenance, but, the moment she is recognised, a crowd of youths collect around her clamouring for her card, and soon she is all aglow with the excitement of the dance and the amusing admiration of the dancing men. They are only ingenuous youths, though, you will observe, or men who regard women’s society as a mere pastime. They are not the marrying men, not men who are seeking the companionship and comfort of a wife. Those are to be found dancing with or talking to the young girls, whose characters are not yet formed by time and experience, who are therefore the more malleable for the magnanimities of marriage, its responsibilities, its sacrifices, and its necessity for mutual give and take. There is no sign of malleability about Miss Singleton; there might have been once, ere the gentleness of hopeful girlhood had been turned to the hardness of disappointed womanhood. But now men do not think of her as a possible wife, or if they do it is negatively. “I like that Miss Singleton; she dances splendidly, and can give you an answer back; says devilish smart things too, but I pity any one who married her: she would soon let him see who was master, and it wouldn’t be he.”