Spinster of This Parish

BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NOVELS
SHORT STORIES
BY W. B. MAXWELL
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1922
COPYRIGHT, 1922 BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, INC.
THE PLIMPTON PRESS · NORWOOD · MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
SPINSTER OF THIS PARISH
Neither the characters nor the incidents of this story are in any way drawn from persons or events of real life; and in passages where the names of the living or the dead have been mentioned, they thus appear merely because the omission of them seemed impossible (in such a context) by reason of the world-wide fame of their holders.

SPINSTER OF THIS PARISH
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.