rnoon wore on, pedestrians saw great gesturing and
waving of skin-tight lemon gloves, while ruinous fragments of song were
dropped behind as the carriages rolled up and down the streets.

"Keeping Open House" was a merry custom; it has gone, like the all-day
picnic in the woods, and like that prettiest of all vanished customs,
the serenade. When a lively girl visited the town she did not long
go unserenaded, though a visitor was not indeed needed to excuse a
serenade. Of a summer night, young men would bring an orchestra under
a pretty girl's window--or, it might be, her father's, or that of an
ailing maiden aunt--and flute, harp, fiddle, 'cello, cornet, and bass
viol would presently release to the dulcet stars such melodies as sing
through "You'll Remember Me," "I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls,"
"Silver Threads Among the Gold," "Kathleen Mavourneen," or "The
Soldier's Farewell."

They had other music to offer, too, for these were the happy days
of "Olivette" and "The Macotte" and "The Chimes of Normandy" and
"Girofle-Girofla" and "Fra Diavola." Better than that, these were the
days of "Pinafore" and "The Pirates of Penzance" and of "Patience." This
last was needed in the Midland town, as elsewhere, for the "aesthetic
movement" had reached thus far from London, and terrible things were
being done to honest old furniture. Maidens sawed what-nots in two, and
gilded the remains. They took the rockers from rocking-chairs and gilded
the inadequate legs; they gilded the easels that supported the crayon
portraits of their deceased uncles. In the new spirit of art they
sold old clocks for new, and threw wax flowers and wax fruit, and the
protecting glass domes, out upon the trash-heap. They filled vases with
peacock feathers, or cattails, or sumac, or sunflowers, and set the
vases upon mantelpieces and marble-topped tables. They embroidered
daisies (which they called "marguerites") and sunflowers and sumac and
cat-tails and owls and peacock feathers upon plush screens and upon
heavy cushions, then strewed these cushions upon floors where fathers
fell over them in the dark. In the teeth of sinful oratory, the
daughters went on embroidering: they embroidered daisies and sunflowers
and sumac and cat-tails and owls and peacock feathers upon "throws"
which they had the courage to drape upon horsehair sofas; they painted
owls and daisies and sunflowers and sumac and cat-tails and peacock
feathers upon tambourines. They hung Ch