are more or less clearly defined
geographically.

That is,--in the English of everyday,--people of different classes live in
different parts of the city. As certain streets and blocks are given to
the wholesale establishments, others to retail stores, and still others to
the manufacturing plants; so there are the tenement districts, the slums,
and the streets where may be found the homes of wealth and fashion.

In Fairlands, the social rating is largely marked by altitude. The city,
lying in the lap of the hills and looking a little down upon the
valley--plebeian business together with those who do the work of Fairlands
occupies the lowest levels in the corporate limits. The heights are held
by Fairlands' Pride. Between these two extremes, the Fairlanders are
graded fairly by the levels they occupy. It is most gratifying to observe
how generally the citizens of this fortunate community aspire to higher
things; and to note that the peculiarly proud spirit of this people is
undoubtedly explained by this happy arrangement which enables every one to
look down upon his neighbor.

The view from the winter home of the Taines was magnificent.

From the window of the room where Mrs. Taine sat, that afternoon, one
could have looked down upon all Fairlands. One might, indeed, have done
better than that. Looking over the wealth of semi-tropical foliage
that--save for the tower of the red-brick Y.M.C.A. building, the white,
municipal flagstaff, and the steeples and belfries of the churches--hid
the city, one might have looked up at the mountains. High, high, above the
low levels occupied by the hill-climbing Fairlanders, the mountains lift
their heads in solemn dignity; looking down upon the loftiest Fairlander
of them all--looking down upon even the Taines themselves.

But the glory of Mrs. Taine's God was not declared by the mountains. She
sat by the window, indeed, but her eyes were upon the open pages of a
book--a popular novel that by some strange legal lapse of the governmental
conscience was--and is still--permitted in print.

The author of the story that so engrossed Mrs. Taine was--in her
opinion--almost as great in literature as Conrad Lagrange, himself. By
those in authority who pronounce upon the worthiness or the unworthiness
of writer folk, he is, to-day, said to be one of the greatest writers of
his generation. He is a realist--a modern of the moderns. His pen has
never been debased by an inartistic and antiquat