ter which
she is going to submit tomorrow. She does not resent Dickey at all.
Neither does she watch his slumbers tenderly nor hover over him in the
approved manner. Eleanore is not the least bit sentimental,--few
Villagers are. They are merely romantic and kindly, which are
different and sturdier graces.

Toward morning Dickey will wake and Eleanore will make him black
coffee and send him home. And there will be the end of that.

Conceive such a situation on the outside! Imagine the feminine
flutter of the conventional Julia. Fancy, above all, the hungry gossip
of conventional Julia's conventional friends! But in the Village there
is very little scandal, and practically no slander. They are very slow
to think evil.

And this in spite of their rather ridiculous way of talking. They do,
a number of them, give the uninitiated an impression of moral laxity.
Their phrases, "the free relation," "the rights of sex," "suppressed
desires," "love without bonds," "liberty of the individual" do, when
jumbled up sufficiently, make a composite picture of strange and lurid
aspect. But actually, they are not one atom less moral than any other
group of human beings,--in fact, thanks to their unquestionable ideals
and their habit of fearless thinking, they are, I think, a good bit
more so.

"While I lived in the Village," writes one shrewd man, "I heard of
more impropriety and saw less of it than anywhere I've ever been!"

Here is another glimpse:

The casual visitor to one of the basement "shops" climbs down the
steep steps and pauses at the door to look at the picture. It is
rather early, and only two customers have turned up so far. They are
sitting in deep, comfortable chairs smoking and drinking (as usual,
ginger-ale). One of the proprietors--a charmingly pretty girl--is
sweeping, preparatory to the evening "trade." When her husband comes
in she is going to leave him in charge and go to the Liberal Club for
a dance, so she is exquisitely dressed in a peach-coloured gown, open
of neck and short of sleeve. She is slim and graceful and her
bright-brown hair is cropped in the Village mode. She is the most
attractive maid-of-all-work that the two "customers" have ever seen.
When, pausing in her labours, she offers them her own cigarette case
with the genuine simplicity and grace of a child offering sweetmeats,
their subjugation is complete. Though they are strangers in a strange
land--they have only dropped in to find out an add