Congregationalists of the countryside did not believe in dancing at all,
especially when there might be a "ginger-ale high-ball" or a glass of ale
connected with it. Besides, there were two poolrooms and a wide street
paved with asphalt, and brilliantly lighted down both sides. Trains
ran--and stopped--by night as well as by day, and Sundays as well as
week-days. In short, Wallacetown was up-to-date. That alone, in the eyes
of Hamstead, was enough to condemn it. And when an enterprising citizen
opened a Moving-Picture Palace, and promptly made an enormous success of
it, Mrs. Elliott could no longer restrain herself.

"It's something scandalous," she declared, "to see the boys an' girls who
would be goin' to Christian Endeavor or Epworth League if they'd ben
brought up right, crowdin' 'round the entrance doors lookin' at the
posters, an' payin' out good money that ought to go into the missionary
boxes for the heathen in the Sandwich Islands, to go an' see filums of
wimmen without half enough clothes on. We read in the _Wallacetown Bugle_
that there was goin' to be a picture called 'The Serpent of the Nile' an'
Joe an' I thought we could risk that, it sounded kinder geographical an'
instructive. Of course we went mostly to see the new buildin' an' who
else would be there, anyway. But land! the serpent was a girl dressed in
the main in beads an' a pleasant smile. She loafed around on hard-lookin'
sofas that was set right out in the open air, an' seemed to have more
beaux than wimmen-friends. I'm always suspicious of that kind of a woman.
I wanted to leave right away, as soon as I see what it was goin' to be
like, but Joe wouldn't. He wanted to set right there until it was over.
He seemed to feel afraid some one might see us comin' out, an' that maybe
we better stay until the very end, so's we wouldn't be noticed, slippin'
out with the crowd.--Have you took cold, Sylvia? You seem to have a real
bad cough."