t." There was fire enough to twinkle in her old eyes as she spoke.
"Beginning at the bottom, one may say that the base of society is the
little tads, ranging down from what your paper calls the Amalgamated
Hand-holders, to the trundle-bed trash just out of their kissing games.
It's funny to watch the little tads grow up and pair off and see how
bravely they try to keep in the swim. I've seen ten grandchildren get
out and I've a great-grandchild whose mother will be pushing her out
before she is old enough to know anything. When young people get married
they all say they're not going to be old-marriedy, and they hang on to
the dances and little hops until the first baby comes. Then they don't
get out to the dances much, but they join a card club."

In her dissertation on the social progress of young married people, Aunt
Martha explained that after the second year the couple go only to the
big dances where everyone is invited, but they pay more attention to
cards. The young mother begins going to afternoon parties, and has the
other young married couples in for dinner. Then, before they know it,
they are invited out to receptions and parties, where little tads
preside at the punch-bowls and wait on table, and are seen and not
heard. Aunt Martha continued:

"By the time the second baby comes they take one of two shoots--either
go in for church socials or edge into a whist club. In this town, I
think, on the whole, that the Congregational Whist Club is younger and
gayer than the Presbyterian Whist Club, but in most towns the
Episcopalians have the really fashionable club. Of course, these clubs
never call themselves by the church names, but they are generally made
up along church lines--except we poor Methodists and Baptists--we have
to divide ourselves out among the others to keep the preacher from going
after us."

Aunt Martha's eyes danced with the mischief in her heart as she went on:
"Now, if after the second baby comes, the young parents begin to feel
like saving money, and being someone at the bank, they join the church
and go in for church socials, which don't take so much time or money as
the whist clubs and receptions. The babies keep coming and the young
people keep on improving their home, moving from the little house to the
big house; the young man's name begins to creep into lists of directors
at the bank, and they are invited out to the big parties, and she goes
to all the stand-up and 'gabble-gobble-and-gi