seems difficult to find
anybody (anybody, that is to say, to whom her career was or is of the
slightest interest) who omits to pronounce Molly Dickett's life an
egregious and shameful failure. I should be sorry for any one, for
instance, who had the hardihood to address her mother on the subject,
for Mrs. Dickett's power of tongue is well known in and beyond local
circles; and since Eleanor married young Farwell, who stands in line
for cashier of the bank forty or fifty years from now, if all goes well
and a series of providential deaths occurs--indeed, ever since Kathryn
became assistant-principal at the high-school (because, as her mother
points out, a mere teacher's position, even in a high-school, may not
be much, but an assistant-principal may be called to consult with the
trustees any day and Kathryn has twice refused a college professorship)
since these family adjustments, I repeat, Mrs. Dickett's tongue has
grown steadily more incisive and her attempts at scaling the fortress
of Mr. Dickett's wardrobe more encouraging.

I believe it to be the simple truth to say that she literally never
mentions her second daughter, and that Molly sends her letters direct
to the factory to be sure that her father gets them--for Mrs. Dickett
is Napoleonic in her methods and would really, I am afraid, stop at
nothing. Any woman who has borne three children and will learn to
drive an electric runabout at the age of forty-five, for the purpose of
taking her husband home from his office in it, is to be reckoned with,
you will agree.

The last time she is known to have referred to the girl definitely was
when she announced the theory that her unfortunate name lay at the
bottom of it all.

"Molly," she is reported to have said, "was named by her father--a
mistake always, I think. The fact that Eleanor was baptised Ella has
little or nothing to do with it; there was never any 'Nellie' or
'Lelie' about it, and at sixteen she began of her own accord to write
it Eleanor. Kathryn I named entirely myself--and after all, what can
Aunt Ella be said to have done for Eleanor? A silver ring and a
bracelet when she graduated! But it was always 'Molly Dickett' all
over the town!"

And it must be confessed that this was so, if, indeed, the confession
proves anything. Nevertheless Mrs. Dickett cannot deny that for a long
time, up to the period of her plunge into outer darkness, Molly was
confessedly the flower of the family. Eleanor was