Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/209

 Even Mrs. Potts, long before the arrival of Miss Caroline, had despaired of teaching Clem to make something of himself. He had refused to subscribe for a "Compendium," and her cordial assurance that he was, by the law of the land, both a man and a brother, did not even mildly elate him. Mrs. Potts was soon in a like despair regarding Miss Caroline, whom she regarded as too frivolous ever to make anything of herself. These two ladies, indeed, were widely apart. Perhaps I can intimate the extent of their unlikeness by revealing that Mrs. Potts, early in our acquaintance, had observed of me that I was not serious enough; whereas Miss Caroline was presently averring to my face that I was entirely too serious. These judgments of myself seemed to contrast the ladies informingly.

The impression that Miss Caroline was frivolous—or even worse—became current the day after her arrival in Little Arcady. Arrayed in a lavender silk dress of many flounces, with bonnet beribboned gayly beyond her years, shod in low walking shoes of heel iniquitously high, a toe minute and shining and an instep ornate to an unholy degree, bearing a slender gold-tipped staff of polished ebony to assist theatrically in her progress, and bestowing placid, patronizing looks to right and left, she had flounced into Main Street, followed ceremoniously by her black chattel, himself set up with a palpable and shameless pride in his degradation, saluting stiffly and with an artificial grandeur those whom he would otherwise