ncial city. The Louds from whom the
locality took its name were never held in much repute, being
considered of a stratum decidedly below the ordinary social one of
the city. When Andrew told his mother that he was to marry a Loud,
she declared that she would not go to his wedding, nor receive the
girl at her house, and she kept her word. When one day Andrew
brought his sweetheart to his home to call, trusting to her pretty
face and graceful though rather sharp manner to win his mother's
heart, he found her intrenched in the kitchen, and absolutely
indifferent to the charms of his Fanny in her stylish, albeit
somewhat tawdry, finery, though she had peeped to good purpose from
her parlor window, which commanded the road, before she fled
kitchenward.

Mrs. Zelotes was beating eggs with as firm an impetus as if she were
heaving up earth-works to strengthen her own pride when her son
thrust his timid face into the kitchen. "Mother, Fanny's in the
parlor," he said, beseechingly.

"Let her set there, then, if she wants to," said his mother, and
that was all she would say.

Very soon Fanny went home on her lover's arm, freeing her mind with
no uncertain voice on the way, though she was on the public road,
and within hearing of sharp ears in open windows. Fanny had a pride
as fierce as Mrs. Zelotes Brewster's, though it was not so well
sustained, and she would then and there have refused to marry Andrew
had she not loved him with all her passionate and ill-regulated
heart. But she never forgave her mother-in-law for the slight she
had put upon her that day, and the slights which she put upon her
later. She would have refused to live next door to Mrs. Zelotes had
not Andrew owned the land and been in a measure forced to build
there. Every time she had flaunted out of her new house-door in her
wedding finery she had an uncomfortable feeling of defiance under a
fire of hostile eyes in the next house. She kept her own windows
upon that side as clear and bright as diamonds, and her curtains in
the stiffest, snowy slants, lest her terrible mother-in-law should
have occasion to impeach her housekeeping, she being a notable
housewife. The habits of the Louds of Loudville were considered
shiftless in the extreme, and poor Fanny had heard an insinuation of
Mrs. Zelotes to that effect.

The elder Mrs. Brewster's knowledge of her son's house and his wife
was limited to the view from her west windows, but there was
half-truce when lit