Yet Mr. Gaskell was too evidently a man of the world, knowing in his
ripe experience that there existed a sufficient number of such cold
natures to warrant the obtrusion of this heart-rending formula; and I
doubt not that these negative specimens of the possible alone restrained
my namesake from going beyond mere copies of that first letter.
It will be seen that the influence of Mrs. Potts pervaded our utmost
social and commercial limits. And when the "Compendium" had become a
centre-table ornament in the homes of the rich, and a bulky object of awe
in humbler abodes, she went over the ground again with other volumes
calculated to serve her double purpose, from "Dr. Chase's Receipt 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.
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