I seem to have embarked, by way of getting to the Milburns’ party—­there is a party at the Milburns’ and some of us are going—­upon an analysis of social principles in Elgin, an adventure of difficulty, as I have once or twice hinted, but one from which I cannot well extricate myself without at least leaving a clue or two more for the use of the curious.  No doubt these rules had their nucleus in the half-dozen families, among whom we may count the shadowy Plummers, who took upon themselves for Fox County, by the King’s pleasure, the administration of justice, the practice of medicine and of the law, and the performance of the charges of the Church of England a long time ago.  Such persons would bring their lines of demarcation with them, and in their new milieu of backwoods settlers and small traders would find no difficulty in drawing them again.  But it was a very long time ago.  The little knot of gentry-folk soon found the limitations of their new conditions; years went by in decades, aggrandizing none of them.  They took, perforce, to the ways of the country, and soon nobody kept a groom but the Doctor, and nobody dined late but the Judge.  There came a time when the Sheriff’s whist club and the Archdeacon’s port became a tradition to the oldest inhabitant.  Trade flourished, education improved, politics changed.  Her Majesty removed her troops—­the Dominion wouldn’t pay, a poor-spirited business—­and a bulwark went with the regiment.  The original dignified group broke, dissolved, scattered.  Prosperous traders foreclosed them, the spirit of the times defeated them, young Liberals succeeded them in office.  Their grandsons married the daughters of well-to-do persons who came from the north of Ireland, the east of Scotland, and the Lord knows where.  It was a sorry tale of disintegration with a cheerful sequel of rebuilding, leading to a little unavoidable confusion as the edifice went up.  Any process of blending implies confusion to begin with; we are here at the making of a nation.

This large consideration must dispose of small anomalies, such as the acceptance, without cant, of certain forms of the shop, euphemized as the store, but containing the same old vertebral counter.  Not all forms.  Dry-goods were held in respect and chemists in comparative esteem; house furnishings and hardware made an appreciable claim, and quite a leading family was occupied with seed grains.  Groceries, on the other hand, were harder to swallow, possibly on account of the apron, though the grocer’s apron, being of linen, had several degrees more consideration than the shoemaker’s, which was of leather; smaller trades made smaller pretensions; Mrs Milburn could tell you where to draw the line.  They were all hard-working folk together, but they had their little prejudices:  the dentist was known as “Doc,” but he was not considered quite on a medical level; it was doubtful whether you bowed to the piano-tuner, and quite a curious and unreasonable contempt was bound up in the word