importance,--Smith's Hotel and the Continental and the Mariposa
House, and the two banks (the Commercial and the Exchange), to say
nothing of McCarthy's Block (erected in 1878), and Glover's Hardware
Store with the Oddfellows' Hall above it. Then on the "cross" street
that intersects Missinaba Street at the main corner there is the Post
Office and the Fire Hall and the Young Men's Christian Association
and the office of the Mariposa Newspacket,--in fact, to the eye of
discernment a perfect jostle of public institutions comparable only
to Threadneedle Street or Lower Broadway. On all the side streets
there are maple trees and broad sidewalks, trim gardens with upright
calla lilies, houses with verandahs, which are here and there being
replaced by residences with piazzas.

To the careless eye the scene on the Main Street of a summer
afternoon is one of deep and unbroken peace. The empty street sleeps
in the sunshine. There is a horse and buggy tied to the hitching post
in front of Glover's hardware store. There is, usually and commonly,
the burly figure of Mr. Smith, proprietor of Smith's Hotel, standing
in his chequered waistcoat on the steps of his hostelry, and perhaps,
further up the street, Lawyer Macartney going for his afternoon mail,
or the Rev. Mr. Drone, the Rural Dean of the Church of England
Church, going home to get his fishing rod after a mothers' auxiliary
meeting.

But this quiet is mere appearance. In reality, and to those who know
it, the place is a perfect hive of activity. Why, at Netley's
butcher shop (established in 1882) there are no less than four men
working on the sausage machines in the basement; at the Newspacket
office there are as many more job-printing; there is a long distance
telephone with four distracting girls on high stools wearing steel