"servant of servants" unto the end; while Solon was assuring her, with equal good nature, that this scriptural law had been repealed by President Lincoln.
Her retort, "I dare say your Mr. Lincoln was capable of wishing to repeal the Bible," was her nearest approach to asperity.
"A battered old woman!" said Solon to me later. "She looks more like a candy saint, if they make such things,—one that a child has been careless with." We agreed that she was an addition to Little Arcady.
The editor of the Argus sighed at this point, and I thought he might be wishing that all feminine newcomers could be like the latest. For Mrs. Aurelia Potts, whose leisure Heaven had increased, was now redoubling her efforts to make the Argus a well of English undefiled—undefiled by what she called "journalisms." Solon must not, he confided to me, say "enthuse" nor "we opine" nor "disremember." He might not say that the pastor "was given" a donation party when he really meant that the party was given,—not that the pastor was given. Further, he must be cautious in the uses of "who" and "whom," and try to break himself of the "a good time was enjoyed by all present" habit.
"And she always says 'diddy-you' instead of 'dij-you,'" broke in my namesake, who, loitering near us, had overheard the name of Mrs. Potts.
"That will do, Calvin!" said his father, shortly. It seemed to me that the still young life of Solon was fast being blighted.
