[J. L. Underwood.]
This would be a dark world without old maids—God bless them! No one can measure their usefulness. Many a one of them has never married because she has never found a man good enough for her. The saddest mourners the world ever saw were some of our Southern girls whose hearts and hopes were buried in a soldier’s grave in Virginia or the Far West. For four years the daughters of the South waited for their lovers, and alas! many waited in a life widowhood of unutterable sorrow. After the seven days’ battles in front of Richmond a horseman rode up to the door of one of the houses on —— street in Richmond and cried out to an anxious mother: “Your son is safe, but Captain —— is killed.” On the opposite side of the street a fair young girl was sitting. She was the betrothed of the ill-fated captain, and heard the crushing announcement. That’s the way war made so many Southern girls widows without coming to the marriage altar.
“It matters little now, Lorena;
The past is the eternal past.
Our heads will soon lie low, Lorena;
Life’s tide is ebbing out so fast
But, there’s a future—oh, thank God—
Of life this is so small a part;
’Tis dust to dust beneath the sod,
But there—up there,—’tis heart to heart.”