l baggage wherever she
travels, and is perpetually solicitous in regard to the presence of
arsenic in wall-papers into the bargain.

Verily, the world has wagged apace in Benham since Selma first looked
out at her metal stag and the surrounding landscape. Ten years later the
Benham Home Beautifying Society took in hand the Nye and those who
drained into it, and by means of garbage consumers, disinfectants, and
filters and judiciously arranged shrubbery converted its channel and
banks into quite a respectable citizens' paradise. But even at that time
the industries on either bank of the Nye, which flowed from east to
west, were forcing the retail shops and the residences further and
further away. To illustrate again from the Flagg family, just before the
war Joel Flagg built a modest house less than a quarter of a mile from
the southerly bank of the river, expecting to end his days there, and
was accused by contemporary censors of an intention to seclude himself
in magnificent isolation. About this time he had yielded to the plea of
his family, that every other building in the street had been given over
to trade, and that they were stranded in a social Sahara of factories.
So like the easy going yet soaring soul that he was, he had moved out
two miles to what was known as the River Drive, where the Nye
accomplishes a broad sweep to the south. There an ambitious imported
architect, glad of such an opportunity to speculate in artistic effects,
had built for him a conglomeration of a feudal castle and an old
colonial mansion in all the grisly bulk of signal failure.

Considering our ideals, it is a wonder that no one has provided a law
forbidding the erection of all the architecturally attractive, or
sumptuous houses in one neighborhood. It ought not to be possible in a
republic for such a state of affairs to exist as existed in Benham. That
is to say all the wealth and fashion of the city lay to the west of
Central Avenue, which was so literally the dividing line that if a
Benhamite were referred to as living on that street the conventional
inquiry would be "On which side?" And if the answer were "On the east,"
the inquirer would be apt to say "Oh!" with a cold inflection which
suggested a ban. No Benhamite has ever been able to explain precisely
why it should be more creditable to live on one side of the same street
than on the other, but I have been told by clever women, who were good
Americans besides, that this is one