a thing, because the faster they were carried the less time they had
to spare! In the days before deathly contrivances hustled them
through their lives, and when they had no telephones--another ancient
vacancy profoundly responsible for leisure--they had time for
everything: time to think, to talk, time to read, time to wait for a
lady!

They even had time to dance "square dances," quadrilles, and
"lancers"; they also danced the "racquette," and schottisches and
polkas, and such whims as the "Portland Fancy." They pushed back the
sliding doors between the "parlour" and the "sitting room," tacked
down crash over the carpets, hired a few palms in green tubs,
stationed three or four Italian musicians under the stairway in the
"front hall"--and had great nights!

But these people were gayest on New Year's Day; they made it a true
festival--something no longer known. The women gathered to "assist"
the hostesses who kept "Open House"; and the carefree men, dandified
and perfumed, went about in sleighs, or in carriages and ponderous
"hacks," going from Open House to Open House, leaving fantastic cards
in fancy baskets as they entered each doorway, and emerging a little
later, more carefree than ever, if the punch had been to their liking.
It always was, and, as the afternoon wore on, pedestrians saw great
gesturing and waving of skin-tight lemon gloves, while ruinous
fragments of song were dropped behind as the carriages rolled up and
down the streets.

"Keeping Open House" was a merry custom; it has gone, like the all-day
picnic in the woods, and like that prettiest of all vanished customs,
the serenade. When a lively girl visited the town she did not long go