itute used to explain why she kept shot for
sale; she was by nature a bellicose person, and, we were sure, her
great grief was her sex.

In my own family peppermints were directly connected, by legend, with
feminine attractiveness. A great grandmother on my mother's side had
been in her day a famous beauty. And when asked the secret of her
charm, as she frequently was (to my infant imagination she appeared as
a superhumanly radiant vision who walked about the streets in a
hoop-skirt with an admiring throng in her wake, constantly being
forced to explain why she was beautiful), she did not utter
testimonials for anybody's soap, nor for a patent dietary system, nor
even for outdoor exercise. She replied simply, "Peppermints". Great
grandmamma died when my mother was a girl, and to mother fell the task
of going through the old lady's possessions. She says it was a task;
probably it was a privilege. At any rate, my mother records that she
found peppermints everywhere, in every kind of wrapper, stowed in the
different receptacles, in boxes, bags, trunks, in bureau drawers and
writing desks and "secretaries". They were among letters and laces, in
the folds of silk gowns and even the table linen. Some of the
peppermints had crumbled and almost evaporated. Some had "ossified",
as mother says. "And," she used to add, telling the tale to
large-eyed, hungry-mouthed little me, "I have not seen so many
peppermints outside a candy shop since that day."

"But did the peppermints really make great grandmamma beautiful?" I
would ask.

"She always said so," my mother would reply, "and she was certainly
very beautiful."

"Is that why you eat peppermints?" I then inquired, on a day when I
had detected her with a bag of the confection.

At this point there was a masculine chuckle from the armchair by the
bookcase. Also, a peppermint was promptly produced for my personal
consumption. I had a great fondness for the memory of my beautiful
ancestor.

Peppermints, too, are intimately connected with the religious
experiences of my childhood; or, perhaps I should say, with the
religious observances of my childhood. Our minister's whiskers always
interested me more than his discourses. As I nibble a peppermint from
the bag before me--lingeringly, for the supply is being fast
depleted--and the frail yet pungent odor fills my nostrils, I am once
more in that half-filled church, on a Sabbath morning in early Spring,
dozing through the sermon,