here the severe inflection of her voice convinced my crime-stricken
conscience that nothing but a miracle--and Mrs. Boyzy--could have saved
my family from utter social destruction if I had been allowed to have
my way. Happily, by this time, Philosophy had come to my aid, and
looking through its beautifying and mellowing mist, all was changed.
The teas and the lunches and the clubs appeared in the brightest tints;
the shivering waits behind the front door changed into evening strolls
into tropical gardens; the gray sprinkled hair of my wife changed into
the sunny auburn of her youth, and she once more stood in the little
church of our old home listening to the words, "For better or for
worse." Happy the married Philosopher who wears around his neck with
an even temper and an understanding mind, this talisman of happiness
devised by far-seeing men of other days--"For better or for worse."
Man cannot harm him nor Womankind disappoint him.

* * * * *

I have been sitting up by the bedside of a dying Adjective. It was not
through pity that I sat there, but through hate. For I detest an
Adjective. It is the father of lies, the author of affectation and the
progenitor of all exaggeration. They should be remitted to limbo with
all the other crudities of youth. I have listened to the point of
exasperation, through an evening, to the absurd use of adjectives by
young girls of education and with some claims to good taste. Somehow
it sometimes comes to me, that this use of adjectives is the besetting
sin of the female conversationalists of this day. Some young fellows
unsex themselves so far as to follow the bad example, but the majority
of that sex substitute oaths for adjectives, which is a social habit
on too low a plane for criticism here. But on all sides in the social
conversation of the young people of this day, it seems to be agreed