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crowded. The patrons--if not too absent-minded--put their fares into a
slot; and no conductor paced the heaving floor, but the driver would rap
remindingly with his elbow upon the glass of the door to his little open
platform if the nickels and the passengers did not appear to coincide in
number. A lone mule drew the car, and sometimes drew it off the track,
when the passengers would get out and push it on again. They really owed
it courtesies like this, for the car was genially accommodating: a lady
could whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would halt
at once and wait for her while she shut the window, put on her hat and
cloak, went downstairs, found an umbrella, told the "girl" what to have
for dinner, and came forth from the house.

The previous passengers made little objection to such gallantry on the
part of the car: they were wont to expect as much for themselves on like
occasion. In good weather the mule pulled the car a mile in a little
less than twenty minutes, unless the stops were too long; but when the
trolley-car came, doing its mile in five minutes and better, it would
wait for nobody. Nor could its passengers have endured such a thing,
because the faster they were carried the less time they had to spare! In
the days before deathly contrivances hustled them through their lives,
and when they had no telephones--another ancient vacancy profoundly
responsible for leisure--they had time for everything: time to think, to
talk, time to read, time to wait for a lady!

They even had time to dance "square dances," quadrilles, and "lancers";
they also danced the "racquette," and schottisches and polkas, and
such whims as the "Portland Fancy." They pushed back the sliding doors
between the "parlour" and the "sitting room," tacked down crash over
the carpets, hired a few palms in green tubs, stationed three or four
Italian musicians under the stairway in the "front hall"--and had great
nights!

But these people were gayest on New Year's Day; they made it a true
festival--something no longer known. The women gathered to "assist" the
hostesses who kept "Open House"; and the carefree men, dandified and
perfumed, went about in sleighs, or in carriages and ponderous "hacks,"
going from Open House to Open House, leaving fantastic cards in fancy
baskets as they entered each doorway, and emerging a little later, more
carefree than ever, if the punch had been to their liking. It always
was, and, as the afte