a contempt to which her meagre phrase did imperfect justice. From time to
time she had to stop altogether, and vent it in "Wells!" of varying accents
and inflections, but all expressive of aversion, and in snorts and sniffs
still more intense in purport.

Then she held that people who had nothing else to do ought at least to be
exemplary in their lives, and she was merciless to the goings-on in South
Hatboro', which had penetrated on the breath of scandal to the elder
village. When Annie came to find out what these were, she did not think
them dreadful; they were small flirtations and harmless intimacies between
the members of the summer community, which in the imagination of the
village blackened into guilty intrigue. On the tongues of some, South
Hatboro' was another Gomorrah; Mrs. Bolton believed the worst, especially
of the women.

"I hear," said Mrs. Bolton, "that them women come up here for _rest_.
I don't know what they want to rest _from_; but if it's from doin'
nothin' all winter long, I guess they go back to the city poot' near's
tired's they come."

Perhaps Annie felt that it was useless to try to enlighten her in regard
to the fatigues from which the summer sojourner in the country escapes
so eagerly; the cares of giving and going to lunches and dinners; the
labour of afternoon teas; the late hours and the heavy suppers of evening
receptions; the drain of charity-doing and play-going; the slavery of
amateur art study, and parlour readings, and musicales; the writing of
invitations and acceptances and refusals; the trying on of dresses; the
calls made and received. She let her talk on, and tried to figure, as well
as she could from her talk, the form and magnitude of the task laid upon
her by Mr. Brandreth, of reconciling Old Hatboro' to South Hatboro', and