down several pegs, too."

"He bears only the most distant resemblance to Hi Otis," said Mrs.
Colton, indignantly. "I never could endure Hi; he didn't have the
manners of a car-conductor, and this young man's real polite and kind,
besides having a _much_ more high-toned face. I don't believe you can
run him out, either. He looks the kind to stay or go, just as suits him.
And I'd advise you to think this matter over before you give it
publicity. I might go out and speak to Isabel quietly--"

"Not much she don't get off as easy as that!"

Mrs. Wheaton nodded approvingly. "It's a case for the Club," said she.
"We'll talk it out this afternoon and decide what's best to do."

And all the others, save Mrs. Colton and the loyal Dolly, cordially
agreed with her.

XXVIII

The Rosewater Literary, Political, and Improvement Club met on the first
and fourth Thursdays of the month, in a large room on the top floor of
the Town Hall, and across the corridor from the Public Library. Saving
only the business section of Rosewater, rejuvenated by the fruitful
Leghorn, there was no such centre of activity within forty miles.
Rosewater, once as disreputable as San Francisco in the Fifties, now
contributed but an occasional drunkard or burglar to the languid powers
on the first floor of the Town Hall. The reading public was largely
confined to young girls with the taste for romance fresh on the palate.
The new books wandered in a year after the rest of the world had
forgotten them, and rarely in couples. One copy was quite able to quench
the thirst for "keeping up," and was often read aloud in the intervals
between cards. The standard works were well represented, however, and a
reasonable amount of history. "All Rosewater's good for," quoth one of
the biting wits of St. Peter, "is to die in. If you're born there people
never forget it; it sticks to you like a strawberry mark on the end of
your nose. And if you live there you might as well be dead, anyhow."
Rosewater retorted that if St. Peter had a better library it was because
she had nothing else to do than read, and, for all its court-house, was
nothing but a suburb of Rosewater, anyway; or at the best a mere
headquarters for drummers.

On the afternoon following Mrs. Haight's card-party the large sunny room
with its outlook upon marsh and hill was filled promptly at two o'clock;
for the word had flown about town that Minerva Haight was on the
war-path and that the scalp sh