the word and
reluctantly found it--rollicking. Yes; that was the word that exactly
described him--rollicking. If she hadn't observed his languor up to a
few minutes ago at supper, and seen him with her own eyes refuse
champagne and turn his back on cocktails, she would have been forced to
the conclusion, dreadful though it was to a mother, that he had been
drinking. And the girls! Two of them. And so young.

Mrs. Twist had known Edward, as she sometimes informed Edith, all his
life, and had not yet found anything in his morals which was not
blameless. Watch him with what loving care she might she had found
nothing; and she was sure her mother's instinct would not have failed
her. Nevertheless, even with that white past before her--he hadn't told
her about "Madame Bovary"--she now instantly believed the worst.

It was the habit of Clark to believe the worst. Clark was very small,
and therefore also very virtuous. Each inhabitant was the careful
guardian of his neighhour's conduct. Nobody there ever did anything
that was wrong; there wasn't a chance. But as Nature insists on a
balance, the minds of Clark dwelt curiously on evil. They were minds
active in suspicion. They leapt with an instantaneous agility at the
worst conclusions. Nothing was ever said in Clark, but everything was
thought. The older inhabitants, made fast prisoners in their mould of
virtue by age, watched with jealous care the behaviour of those still
young enough to attract temptation. The younger ones, brought up in
inhibitions, settled down to wakefulness in regard to each other.
Everything was provided and encouraged in Clark, a place of pleasant
orchards and gentle fields, except the things that had to do with love.
Husbands were there; and there was a public library, and social
afternoons, and an Emerson society. The husbands died before the wives,
being less able to cope with virtue; and a street in Clark of smaller
houses into which their widows gravitated had been christened by the
stationmaster--a more worldly man because of his three miles off and all
the trains--Lamentation Lane.

In this village Mrs. Twist had lived since her marriage, full of dignity
and honour. As a wife she had been full of it, for the elder Mr. Twist
had been good even when alive, and as a widow she had been still fuller,
for the elder Mr. Twist positively improved by being dead. Not a breath
had ever touched her and her children. Not the most daring and
distrustful C