Middler!" exclaimed the lady so
recently from the Hub. "The people's just as different as chalk is
from cheese; and there ain't a church in Boston--and there's hundreds
of 'em--that don't make our Union Church look silly."

"But, Miz' Petrie," cried one inquiring body. "Just what is it that
makes Boston so different from Poketown? After all, folks is
folks--and houses is houses--and streets is streets. Ain't that so?"

"Wa-al!" The traveled lady was stumped for a moment. Then she burst
out with: "There! I'll tell ye. It's 'cause there's some order in the
city; ev'rything here is haphazard. Course, there's poor
sections--reg'lar _slums_, as they call 'em--in Boston. But the poor,
dirty buildings and the poor, dirty streets, are in sort of a bunch
together. They're in spots; they ain't dribbled all through the town,
mixed up with fine houses, and elegant squares, and boulevards. Nope.
Cities know how to hide their poor spots in some ways. Boston puts its
best foot forward, as the sayin' is.

"But take it right here in Poketown. Now, ain't the good and the bad
all shoveled together? Take Colonel Pa'tridge's fine house on High
Street, stuck in right between Miner's meat shop and old Bill Jones'
drygoods an' groceries--an' I don't know which is the commonest lookin'
of the two."

"There you air right, Miz' Petrie," agreed the Widow Beasely. "Miner's
got so dirty--around his shop I mean--that I hate to buy a piece of
meat there."

"But the other butcher ain't much better," cried another troubled
housewife. "And the flies!"

"Oh, the awful flies!" chorused several.

"Them critters is a pest, an' that's a fac'," declared Mrs.
Scattergood. "Talk abeout the plagues o' Egypt----"

"But Miz' Petrie was tellin' us how Boston was different----"

"My soul and body!" gasped Mrs. Beasely. "I reckon she's told us
enough. It's a fac'. Poketown is all cluttered up--what ain't right
down filthy. An' I don't see as there's anything can be done abeout
it."

"Why--Mrs. Beasely--do you believe there is anything so bad that it
can't be helped?" queried Janice, slowly and thoughtfully. It was the
first time her voice had been heard amid the general clatter, since she
had come to sit down. Her nimble fingers were just as busy as any
other ten in the room; but her tongue had been idle.

"They say it's never too late to mend," quote 'Rill Scattergood; "but I
am afraid that Mr. Miner, and Mr. Jones, and some of t