He could not frame the story even in thought. He could not tell it. Yet if he did not tell, the secret would gnaw his heart away like a rat caged within. Dr. Chirnside could hardly have found appropriate gloom for this disaster since he was already in such despair over the habits of the modern women, that he had no superlatives left for their dishonor. As the stage swung down into the city, lurching through mudholes that occasionally compelled it to take to the sidewalk and scatter the pedestrians like chickens, he pointed out a girl strolling along with a greyhound on the leash of a blue silk ribbon. “See how our girls walk abroad unattended,” he gasped. “That young female has at least a dog to protect her, but it is appalling how careless parents are. No wonder our foreign critics are aghast at the license we allow our ladies. They go about without a father or a husband to guard them from the insolence of bystanders. It is the custom, too, to permit couples who have been formally betrothed to be alone together without any guardian. In most of the homes sofas have been imported for them to sit upon. No wonder that New England people say that their old custom of bundling was less immodest. The very word sofa implies an Oriental luxury. “The dress of our women, too, is absolutely disgusting. When I was young there was an outcry against a new fashion of shortening the skirts in the rear so that the heels were visible. People frankly cried ‘Shame!’ at the sight of them. Nowadays ankles are openly exposed. Look at that pretty creature stepping across the gutter. She is actually lifting her petticoats out of the mud. No wonder those men all crane their necks to ogle! And her satin shoes are hardly more than cobwebs! “Their immodesty does not stop at the ankles. The bare bosom is seen! Really! I blush to mention what young females of excellent family do not blush to reveal. “It is perilous to health, too. You see our ladies gadding about in the bitterest weather with their necks uncovered, while gentlemen shiver under their great coats with five or six capes and heavy stocks and mufflers besides. “But the men are hardly more modest. This new fashion of—dare I refer to it?—of buttoning the pantaloons down the front instead of on the sides! It is astounding. One or two sermons have already been preached against it and I think I shall refer to it myself next Sabbath. Pardon me!” There was a respite while he took out his pocketbook and made a note of this urgent matter. RoBards remembered his own memorandum that a man may smile and be a rake as well. He could hardly keep from plucking at the parson’s sleeve and confessing: “When you are in your pulpit, cry out also that one of the town’s pets, the popular Harry Chalender, has ruined the good name of my wife and our children and stained the old RoBards mansion with the wreckage of the Seventh Thou-shalt-not!”