n misapplied colloquialisms. Here I read: 'The rain
last week left the streets in a frightful state. The mud simply won't
jell.'"

Shame mantled the brow of Solon Denney.

"In short," concluded Mrs. Potts, "I regret to say that your paper is
not yet one that I could wish to put into the hands of my little
Roscoe."

Little Roscoe coughed sympathetically and remarked, before he lost his
chance for a word: "The boy of to-day is the man of to-morrow. Parents
cannot be too careful about what their little ones will read during the
long winter evenings that will soon be upon us." He coughed again when
he had finished.

"The press is a mighty lever of civilization," continued the mother,
with an approving glance at her boy, "and you, Mr. Denney, should feel
proud indeed of your sacred mission to instruct and elevate these poor
people. Of course I shall have other duties to occupy my time--"

Solon had glanced up brightly, but gloom again overspread his face as
she continued:--

"Yet I shall make it not the least of my works--if a poor weak woman may
so presume--to help you in correcting certain faults of style and taste
in your sheet, for it goes each week into many homes where the light
must be sorely needed, and surely you and I would not be adequately
sensible of our responsibilities if we continued to let it go as it is.
_Would_ we?" And again she glowed upon Solon with the condescending
sweetness of a Sabbath-school teacher to the littlest boy in her class.

But now we both breathed more freely, for she allowed the wretched
_Argus_ to drop from her disapproving fingers, and began to ask us
questions, as to a place of worship, a house suitable for residence
purposes, a school for little Roscoe, and the nature of those clubs or
societies for mental improvement that might exist among us. And she
asked about Families. We were obliged to confess that there were no
Families in Little Arcady, in the true sense of the term, though we did
not divine its true sense until she favored us with the detail that her
second cousin had married a relative of the Adams family. We said
honestly that we were devoid of Families in that sense. None of us had
ever been able to marry an Adams. No Adams with a consenting mind--not
even a partial Adams--had ever come among us.

Still, Mrs. Potts wore her distinction gracefully, and was even a little
apologetic.

"In Boston, you know, we rather like to know 'who's who,' as the saying
is."