For while the ultimate import of these matters was not denied in Elgin, there was a general feeling against giving too much meaning to them, probably originating in a reluctance among heads of families to add to their responsibilities.

These early spring indications were belittled and laughed at; so much so that the young people them selves hardly took them seriously, but regarded them as a form of amusement almost conventional.

Nothing would have surprised or embarrassed them more than to learn that their predilections had an imperative corollary, that anything should, of necessity, "come of it." Something, of course, occasionally did come of it; and, usually after years of "attention," a young man of Elgin found himself mated to a young woman, but never under circumstances that could be called precipitate or rash.

The cautious blood and far sight of the early settlers, who had much to reckon with, were still preponderant social characteristics of the town they cleared the site for.

Meanwhile, however, flowers were gathered, and all sorts of evanescent idylls came and went in the relations of young men and maidens.