ospels, without faith, or love, or prayer;
spending life as a moth does,--in vain attempts to burn himself up in
the candle, and knowing nothing better. In fact, after a while, the
stiff, tow-colored moustache, smart stride, and flippant air of this
poor little man struck him somewhere in the region between a smile and
a tear; and his enforced hospitality began to wear a tincture of
real kindness. There is no less pathos in moral than in physical
imbecility.

It is an observable social phenomenon that, when any family in a
community makes an advance very greatly ahead of its neighbors in
style of living or splendor of entertainments, the fact causes great
searchings of spirit in all the region round about, and abundance of
talk, wherein the thoughts of many hearts are revealed.

Springdale was a country town, containing a choice knot of the old,
respectable, true-blue, Boston-aristocracy families. Two or three
of them had winter houses in Beacon Street, and went there, after
Christmas, to enjoy the lectures, concerts, and select gayeties of
the modern Athens; others, like the Fergusons and Seymours, were in
intimate relationship with the same circle.

Now, it is well known that the real old true-blue, Simon-pure, Boston
family is one whose claims to be considered "the thing," and the only
thing, are somewhat like the claim of apostolic succession in ancient
churches. It is easy to see why certain affluent, cultivated, and
eminently well-conducted people should be considered "the thing" in
their day and generation; but why they should be considered as the
"only thing" is the point insoluble to human reason, and to be
received by faith alone; also, why certain other people, equally
affluent, cultivated, and well-conducted are _not_ "the thing" is one
of the divine mysteries, about which whoso observes Boston society
will do well not too curiously to exercise his reason.

These "true-blue" families, however, have claims to respectability;
which make them, on the whole, quite a venerable and pleasurable
feature of society in our young, topsy-turvy, American community. Some
of them have family records extending clearly back to the settlement
of Massachusetts Bay; and the family estate is still on grounds first
cleared up by aboriginal settlers. Being of a Puritan nobility, they
have an ancestral record, affording more legitimate subject of family
self-esteem than most other nobility. Their history runs back to
an ancest