



Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from
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[Illustration: "HE TOOK OUT HIS EYEGLASS TO STUDY IT."]




BOSTON NEIGHBOURS
IN TOWN AND OUT

BY AGNES BLAKE POOR

[Illustration]

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1898


COPYRIGHT, 1898
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

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CONTENTS

                                                                    PAGE
  OUR TOLSTOI CLUB                                                     1
  A LITTLE FOOL                                                       41
  WHY I MARRIED ELEANOR                                               83
  THE STORY OF A WALL-FLOWER                                         123
  POOR MR. PONSONBY                                                  187
  MODERN VENGEANCE                                                   239
  THREE CUPS OF TEA                                                  274
  THE TRAMPS' WEDDING                                                300

       *       *       *       *       *

The author and the publishers desire to make acknowledgment to the
publishers of the _Century Magazine_ and of the _New England Magazine_
for their courtesy in permitting the re-issue of certain stories which
were originally published in these periodicals.




[Illustration]

OUR TOLSTOI CLUB


I should be glad to tell a story if I only knew one, but I don't. Some
people say that one experience is as interesting as another, and that
any real life is worth hearing about; but I think it must make some
little difference who the person is. But if I really must tell one, and
since you all have told yours, and such nice ones, and anything is
better than nothing when we are kept in all the morning by a pouring
rain, with nothing to do, because we came only for a week, and did not
expect it to rain, I will try and tell you about our Tolstoi Club,
because that was rather like a story--at least it might have been like
one if things had turned out a little differently.

You know I live in a suburb of Boston, and a very charming, delightful
one it is. I cannot call it by its real name, because I am going to be
so very personal; so I will call it "Babyland," which indeed people
often do in fun. There never was such a place for children. The
population is mostly under seven years old, for it was about seven years
ago that young married people began to move into it in such numbers,
because it is so healthy; but it was always a great place for them even
when it was small. The old inhabitants are mostly grandfathers and
grandmothers now, and enjoy it very much; but they usually go into town
in the winter, with such unmarried children as they have left, to get a
little change; for there is no denying that there is a sameness about
it--the sidewalks are crowded with perambulators every pleasant day, and
at our parties the talk is apt to run too much on nursery-maids, and
milkmen and their cows, and drains, to be very interesting to those who
have not learned how terribly important such things are. So in winter
we--I mean the young married couples, of whom I am half a one--are left
pretty much to our own devices.

Though we are all so devoted to our infant families, we are not so much
so as to give up all rational pleasures or intellectual tastes; we could
not live so near Boston, you know, and do that. Our husbands go into
town every day to make money, and we go in every few days to spend it,
and in the evenings, if they are not too tired, we sometimes make them
take us in to the theatres and concerts. We all have a very nice social
circle, for Babyland is fashionable as well as respectable, and we are
asked out more or less, and go out; but for real enjoyment we like our
own clubs and classes the best. We feel so safe going round in the
neighbourhood, because we are so near the children, and can be called
home any time if necessary. There is our little evening dancing-club,
which meets round at one another's houses, where we all exchange
husbands--a kind of grown-up "puss-in-the-corner"; only, as the supply
of dancing husbands is not quite equal to that of wives, we have to get
a young man or two in if we can; and for the same reason we don't ask
any girls, who, indeed, are not very eager to come. Then there is the
musical club, and the sketching-club, and we have a great many morning
clubs for