"Well, I don't forget those strangers, anyway!"

The three Misses Snow tittered, and looked at one another, but were
immediately solemnized by a glance from their father.

Mrs. Snow, having found her tongue--a characteristically lively and
emphatic one--went on to say:--

"I think Miss Butterworth is right. It's a burning shame, and you ought
to go to the meeting to-morrow, and put it down."

"Easily said, my dear," responded Mr. Snow, "but you forget that Mr.
Belcher is Buffum's friend, and that it is impossible to carry any
measure against him in Sevenoaks. I grant that it ought not to be so. I
wish it were otherwise; but we must take things as they air."

"To take things as they air," was a cardinal aphorism in Mr. Snow's
budget of wisdom. It was a good starting-point for any range of
reasoning, and exceedingly useful to a man of limited intellect and
little moral courage. The real truth of the case had dawned upon Miss
Butterworth, and it had rankled in the breast of Mrs. Snow from the
beginning of his pointless talk. He was afraid of offending Robert
Belcher, for not only did his church need repairing, but his salary was
in arrears, and the wolf that had chased so many up the long hill to
what was popularly known as Tom Buffum's Boarding House he had heard
many a night, while his family was sleeping, howling with menace in the
distance.

Mrs. Snow rebelled, in every part of her nature, against the power which