Upon the evenings of these first Mondays the Mayor and city officials met and made great talk over small matters, and with the labouring of a mountain, brought forth mice.  The City Hall was closed upon other occasions, unless the village talent gave a play for some local benefit.  Fairbridge was intensely dramatic, and it was popularly considered that great, natural, histrionic gifts were squandered upon the Fairbridge audiences, appreciative though they were.  Outside talent was never in evidence in Fairbridge.  No theatrical company had ever essayed to rent that City Hall.  People in Fairbridge put that somewhat humiliating fact from their minds.  Nothing would have induced a loyal citizen to admit that Fairbridge was too small game for such purposes.  There was a tiny theatre in the neighbouring city of Axminister, which had really some claims to being called a city, from tradition and usage, aside from size.  Axminister was an ancient Dutch city, horribly uncomfortable, but exceedingly picturesque.  Fairbridge looked down upon it, and seldom patronised the shows (they never said “plays”) staged in its miniature theatre.  When they did not resort to their own City Hall for entertainment by local talent, they arrayed themselves in their best and patronised New York itself.

New York did not know that it was patronised, but Fairbridge knew.  When Mr. and Mrs. George B. Slade boarded the seven o’clock train, Mrs. Slade, tall, and majestically handsome, arrayed most elegantly, and crowned with a white hat (Mrs. Slade always affected white hats with long drooping plumes upon such occasions), and George B., natty in his light top coat, standing well back upon the heels of his shiny shoes, with the air of the wealthy and well-assured, holding a belted cigar in the tips of his grey-gloved fingers, New York was most distinctly patronised, although without knowing it.

It was also patronised, and to a greater extent, by little Mrs. Wilbur Edes, very little indeed, so little as to be almost symbolic of Fairbridge itself, but elegant in every detail, so elegant as to arrest the eye of everybody as she entered the train, holding up the tail of her black lace gown.  Mrs. Edes doted on black lace.  Her small, fair face peered with a curious calm alertness from under the black plumes of her great picture hat, perched sidewise upon a carefully waved pale gold pompadour, which was perfection and would have done credit to the best hairdresser or the best French maid in New York, but which was achieved solely by Mrs. Wilbur Edes’ own native wit and skilful fingers.

Mrs. Wilbur Edes, although small, was masterly in everything, from waving a pompadour to conducting theatricals.  She herself was the star dramatic performer of Fairbridge.  There was a strong feeling in Fairbridge that in reality she might, if she chose, rival Bernhardt.  Mrs. Emerston Strong, who had been abroad and had seen Bernhardt on her native soil, had often said that Mrs. Edes reminded her of the great French actress, although she was much handsomer, and so moral!  Mrs. Wilbur Edes was masterly in morals, as in everything else.  She was much admired by the opposite sex, but she was a model wife and mother.