n item beginning, 'At eight-thirty, A.M., last Friday the soul
of Martin G. Buckley, dressed in a neat-fitting suit of black, with a
low collar and black cravat, was ushered into the presence of his God.'
Pardon me, but do we not find here, if we read closely, an attempt to
blend the material with the spiritual with a result that we can only
designate as infelicitous?"

Solon was writhing after the manner of uneasy little Roscoe. The bland
but inexorable regard of his inquisitor had subdued him beyond retort.

"I might, again, call your attention to this item." And she did, reading
with well-trained inflection:--

"'Kye Mayabb from south of town and Sym Pleydell, who rents the Clemison
farm, met up in front of Barney Skeyhan's place last Saturday afternoon
and started to settle an old grudge, while their respective better
halves looked on from across the street. Kye had Sym down and was doing
some good work with his right, when his wife called to him, "Now, Kye
Mayabb, you come right away from there before you get into trouble."
Whereupon the valiant better half of him who was being beaten to death
called out cheerily, "Don't let him scare you, Sym!" The boys made it
up afterward, but our little street was quite lively for a time.'

"Now as to that," went on Mrs. Potts, affecting to deliberate, "could we
not better have described that as 'a disgraceful street brawl'? And yet
I find no word of deprecation. It is told, indeed, with a regrettable
flippancy. Flippancy, I may note again, mars the following item: 'They
tell a good story of old Sarsius Lambert over at Bethel. His wife was
drowned a couple of weeks ago, and Link Talbot went to break the news to
the old man. "Uncle Sarsh," says Link, "your wife is drowned. She fell
in at the ford, and an hour later they found her two miles down-stream."
"Two miles an hour!" said Uncle Sarsius, in astonishment. "Well, well,
she floated down quite lively, didn't she?"'

"You will pardon me, I trust," said Mrs. Potts, "if I say it would have
been better to speak of the grief-stricken husband and to conclude with
a fitting sentiment such as 'the proudest monuments to the sleeping dead
are reared in the hearts of the living.'"

"I'll put it in next week," ventured Solon, meekly. "I didn't think of
it at the time."

"Ah, but one should _always think_, should one not?" asked Mrs. Potts,
almost sweetly. "By thinking, for example, you could elevate your sheet
by eliminating certai