Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/163

 Book" to "Picturesque Italy, profusely Illustrated." She also purveyed a line of "art-pieces," including "Wide Awake and Fast Asleep," "The Monarch of the Glen," "Woman Gathering Fagots," and "Retreat from Moscow." Also, little Roscoe, out of school hours, took subscriptions for the Youth's Companion.

Yet the town long bore it with a gentle fortitude. I believe it was not until the following spring that murmurs were really noticeable. Naturally they were directed against Solon Denney. By that time Westley Keyts was greeting Solon morosely, though without open cavil; but Asa Bundy no longer hesitated to speak out. He quoted Scripture to Solon about the house that was swept and garnished, and the seven other wicked spirits that entered it, making its last state worse than its first.

And of course Solon was much troubled by this, though he never failed to rally to the support of the lady thus maligned, dwelling upon the advantage her mere presence must always be to the town.

"If she'd only let it go at that—'her mere presence'—" rejoined Bundy. But Solon protested, defending the lady's activities. He became sensitive to any mention of her name, and fell to brooding. He believed her to be a model woman, and little Roscoe to be a model boy.

"Why don't you try to be more like Roscoe Potts?" I heard him ask his son in a moment of reproof.