every commercial and industrial pie in Wahaska.

After the house-warming, which was a social event quite without
precedent in Wahaskan annals, Miss Grierson's leadership was tacitly
acknowledged by a majority of the ex-farmers' wives and daughters,
though they still discussed her with more or less frankness in the
sewing-circles and at neighborhood tea-drinkings. Crystallized into
accusation, there was little to be urged against her save that she was
pretty and rich, and that her leaning toward modernity was sometimes a
little startling. But being human, the missionary seamstresses and the
tea-drinkers made the most of these drawbacks, whetting criticism to a
cutting edge now and then with curious speculations about Margery's
mother, and wondering why Jasper Grierson or the daughter never
mentioned her.

Meanwhile, the big house on the lake front continued to set the social
pace. Afternoon teas began to supersede the sewing-circles; not a few of
the imitators attained to the formal dignity of visiting cards with
"Wednesdays" or "Thursdays" appearing in neat script in the lower
left-hand corner; and in some of the more advanced households the
principal meal of the day drifted from its noontide anchorage to
unwonted moorings among the evening hours--greatly to the distress of
the men, for whom even hot weather was no longer an excuse for appearing
in shirt-sleeves.

For these innovations Miss Grierson was indirectly, though not less
intentionally, responsible; and her satisfaction was in just proportion
to the results attained. But in spite of these successes there were
still obstacles to be surmounted. From the first there had been a
perverse minority refusing stubbornly to bow the head in the house
of--Grierson. The Farnhams were of it, and the Raymers, with a following
of a few of the families called "old" as age is reckoned in the Middle
West. The men of this minority were slow to admit the omnipotence of
Jasper Grierson's money, and the women were still slower to accept Miss
Grierson on terms of social equality.

At the house-warming this minority had been represented only by
variously worded regrets. At a reception, given to mark the closing of
Mereside, socially, on the eve of Miss Margery's departure for the
winter in Florida, the regrets were still polite and still unanimous.
Miss Margery laughed defiantly and set her white teeth on a determined
resolution to reduce this inner citadel of conservatism at all