up as
impracticable: not because she was impolite or unkind: they did not
themselves know why they failed, though she could have told them; for,
old maid as she was, poor and plain and queer, she could not bring
herself to associate familiarly with people who put their teaspoons
into the sugar-bowl, helped themselves with their own knives and forks,
gathered up bits of uneaten butter and returned them to the plate for
next time, or replaced on the dish pieces of cake half eaten or cut with
the knives they had just introduced into their mouths. Miss Lucinda's
code of minor morals would have forbidden her to drink from the same cup
with a queen, and have considered a pitchfork as suitable as a knife to
eat with, nor would she have offered to a servant the least thing she
had touched with her own lips or her own implements of eating; and she
was too delicately bred to look on in comfort where such things were
practised. Of course these women were not ladies; and though many of
them had kind hearts and warm impulses of goodness, yet that did not
make up to her for their social misdemeanors, and she drew herself
more into her own little shell, and cared more for her garden and her
chickens, her cats and her dog, than for all the humanity of Dalton put
together.

Miss Manners held her flowers next dearest to her pets, and treated them
accordingly. Her garden was the most brilliant bit of ground possible.
It was big enough to hold one flourishing peach-tree, one Siberian crab,
and a solitary egg-plum; while under these fruitful boughs bloomed
moss-roses in profusion, of the dear old-fashioned kind, every deep pink
bud with its clinging garment of green breathing out the richest odor;
close by, the real white rose, which fashion has banished to country
towns, unfolded its cups of pearl flushed with yellow sunrise to the
heart; and by its side its damask sister waved long sprays of bloom
and perfume. Tulips, dark-purple and cream-color, burning scarlet and
deep-maroon, held their gay chalices up to catch the dew; hyacinths,
blue, white, and pink, hung heavy bells beneath them; spiced carnations
of rose and garnet crowded their bed in July and August, heart's-ease
fringed the walks, May honeysuckles clambered over the board-fence,
and monthly honeysuckles overgrew the porch at the back-door, making
perpetual fragrance from their moth-like horns of crimson and
ivory. Nothing inhabited those beds that was not sweet and fair and
ol