and live long, we must school ourselves in the minor details of
self-control and everyday philosophy that make up a useful and
well-balanced life.




CHAPTER XIV.

"BUTTERED PARSNIPS."


I shall never forget the first time I heard the homely proverb, once
better known than now, "Fine words butter no parsnips."

A bitter-tongued old lady, with an eye like a hawk's, and a certain
suspicious turn of the head to this side and that which reminded one
of the same bird of prey, was discussing a new neighbor.

"I don't hold with meaching ways at any time and in anybody," said the
thin croak, made more husky by snuff, a pinch of which she held
between thumb and finger, the joined digits punctuating her
strictures. "And she's one of the fair-and-softy sort. A pleasant word
to this one, and a smile to that, and always recollecting who is sick,
and who is away from home, and ready to talk about what pleases you,
and not herself, and praising your biscuits and your bonnets and your
babies, and listening to you while you are talking as if there was
nobody else upon earth."

Like the octogenarian whose teeth gave out before his dry toast, she