"(We spare our readers the remainder of the alphabet.)
"All genuine have the name of the inventor and proprietor blown on the bottle, thus:
"Alcibiades Smith."
A sudden light flashed upon poor Margaret, showing her forgotten piles of bottles on the counters of village stores, and long columns of unheeded advertisements in the country newspapers. She stood silent and shamefaced.
"What will your father say?" reiterated Cousin Susan. Dr. Parke's reputation with the general public was largely founded on a series of letters he had contributed to a scientific journal exposing and denouncing quack medicines.
"I didn't know," said Margaret, helplessly, wondering that the truth could sound so like a lie, but unable to fortify it by any asseveration.
"Why, you must have heard about the Smiths: everybody has. They have cut the most ridiculous figure everywhere. They came to Clifton Springs once while I was there; and they were really too dreadful; the kind of people you can't stay in the room with." Cousin Susan had not talked so much for years, and began to feel that the excitement was doing her good, which may excuse her merciless pelting of poor Margaret. "You were too young, perhaps," she went on, "to have heard about Ossian Smith, the oldest son, but the newspapers were full of him—of the life he led in London and Paris, when he was a mere boy. The American minister got him home at last, and a pretty penny old Smith had to pay to get him out of his entanglements. He had delirium tremens, and jumped out of a window, and killed himself, soon after—the best thing he could do. But you must have heard of Lunetta Smith, the daughter; about her running away with the coachman; it happened only about three or four years ago. Why, the New York Sun had two columns about it, and the World four. All the family were interviewed, your young man among the rest, and the comic papers said the mésalliance appeared to be on the coachman's side. She died, too, soon after; you must have heard of it."
"No, I never did. Father never lets me read the daily papers," said Margaret, a little proudly.
"Well!" said Cousin Susan, with relaxing energy, "I don't often read such things myself; but one can't help noticing them; and Mrs. Champion Pryor has been telling me a great deal about it."