society
from the depredations of these scorpions, by colonizing them where
they will expend their poison without dangerous results. If sting
they must, let it be among themselves. If I were lunatic enough to
desire to vote, I should spend my franchise in favour of a 'Gossip
Reservation'--somewhere close to the Great Western Desert, to which
the disappointed widows, spiteful old maids, and snarling dyspeptic
bachelors of this much-suffering generation should be relegated for
domiciliation and reform. Freedom serves America much as AEsop's stork
did the frogs: we are appallingly free to be devoured by envy,
stabbed by calumny, strangled by slander. I believe if I were a
painter, and desired to portray Cleopatra's death, I would assuredly
give to the asp the baleful features and sneering smirk of Mrs.
Prudence. Every Sunday when she twists those two curls on her
forehead till they lift themselves like horns, puts up her
eye-glasses and pays her respects to our pew, I catch myself
whispering '_Cerastes!_' and wishing that I were only the _camera_
of a photographer."

"Take care, mother! would you accept a homestead in your contemplated
'Reservation'?"

She pinched his ear.

"Don't presume, sir, to preach to me. Really, I often wonder how
Peyton can force himself to smile and parry the vinegar cruets that
woman throws at him in the shape of observations upon the 'rapid
decline of evangelical piety,' and the 'sadly backslidden nature' of
the clergy."

"Because he is the very best man in the world, and faithfully
practises what he preaches--Christian charity. What is Mrs. Pru's
latest grievance?"

"That Peyton does not admit her to his confidence, and supply her
with all the particulars of Regina's history and family, which he
withholds even from you and me, and about which we should never dream
of catechizing him. In a better cause, her bold effrontery would be
sublime. Fortunately she was absent in Vermont for some months after
the child came, and curiosity had subsided into indifference until
she returned,--when lo! a geyser of righteous anxiety and suspicion
boiled up in the congregation, and wellnigh scalded us. What do you
suppose she blandly asked me one day, in the child's presence? 'Were
not Mr. Hargrove's friends mistaken in believing he had never
married?' Now I contend that the law of the land should indict for
just such cruel and wicked innuendoes, because these social crimes
that the statutes do not reac