haracter similar to the silly, spiteful, dried-up old maid of English
literature and its American imitations, our spinsters being generally
stout and jolly personages and rather over-fond of children. My
mother-in-law was very nice, and we were the best of friends.

Rich relations, as a general thing, are abominable: the mere possession
of one sometimes makes a person disagreeable. Show the person with a
rich cousin the most secluded cot among mountains, and, "Oh, you should
see my cousin's house on Michigan Avenue!" is the reply; or a beautiful
room speaking the noble quality of its occupant, and, "Call that nice?
You should see my cousin's house on Michigan Avenue!" is remarked. But
Lydia's rich relations, the Stenes of Chicago, appeared to be
exceptions. They were very clannish people, fond of their own kin to
the last degree. They came from Michigan, and were of the old colony
stock, regular Yankee-Doodle folks, the older ones and many of the
younger ones still using New England idioms and quaint phrases that
came long ago from the East--yes, from the holts of old England's
Suffolk perhaps. You could not persuade one of them to call jelly
anything but "jell" or a repast anything but a "meal of victuals," and
they said "dooty" and "roomor" and "noos" and "clawg," and sometimes
would pop out "his'n" and "her'n." Several of the Stenes had been in
business thirty years in metropolitan Chicago, yet they spoke in the
twang of a Yankee hill-country. The women of the family were famous
housekeepers--too neat to keep a cat lest there might be a cat hair on
the carpet, and never liking visitors unless there was a dreadful note
of preparation, and then they received grandly. To show Lydia their
good-will, they gave her profuse wedding-presents and a splendid
trousseau. On my side I bought a neat cottage, paying cash down--all
the money I had. It was one of a square of cottages principally
occupied by young married people having plenty of children, and a
joyous crew they were. Our street had a broad roadway and flagged
sidewalks edged with neat turf in which fine trees were growing, and
was lined with beautiful homes of varied architecture, suggesting
charming interiors. A row of tall, "high-stoop" New York houses with
dark stone trimmings stood next to a row of English basements of
tuck-pointed brick, and next to them was a range of houses of light,
cheerful Joliet stone, with awnings at the windows and carriage-steps
as clean