We have no children, and my wife, for lack of other interests, finds
her housekeeping an engrossing and serious matter. She is in the
habit of bringing her domestic difficulties to me when I reach home
in the evenings, a habit which sometimes renders me unjustly
indignant. Most unjustly, for she has borne with me for thirty years
and is known throughout the entire neighborhood as a perfect
housekeeper. I can close my eyes and find any desired article in my
bedroom at any time.

We passed the Wellses' house on our way to Mrs. Dane's that night,
and my wife commented on the dark condition of the lower floor.

"Even if they are going out," she said, "it would add to the
appearance of the street to leave a light or two burning. But some
people have no public feeling."

I made no comment, I believe. The Wellses were a young couple, with
children, and had been known to observe that they considered the
neighborhood "stodgy." And we had retaliated, I regret to say, in
kind, but not with any real unkindness, by regarding them as
interlopers. They drove too many cars, and drove them too fast; they
kept a governess and didn't see enough of their children; and their
English butler made our neat maids look commonplace.

There is generally, in every old neighborhood, some one house on
which is fixed, so to speak, the community gaze, and in our case it
was on the Arthur Wellses'. It was a curious, not unfriendly
staring, much I daresay like that of the old robin who sees two
young wild canaries building near her.