To a considerable element of the town it seemed to be mere innate perversity.

"It's _in_ her," was an explanation which Westley Keyts thought all-sufficient, though he added by way, as it were, of putting this into raised letters for the blind, "she'd have to raise hell just the same if it had cost that there railroad eight million 'stead of eight hundred to exterminate Potts!" For myself, I should have set this thing to different words.

I regarded Mrs.Potts as a zealot whom no advantage of worldly resource could blind to our shortcomings, nor deter from ministering unto them.

Had it been unnecessary to earn bread for herself and little Roscoe, I am persuaded that she would still have been unremitting in her efforts to uplift us.
In that event she might, it is true, have read us more papers and sold us fewer books; but she would have allowed herself as little leisure.
That Little Arcady was unequal to this broader view, however, was to be inferred from comments made in the hearing of and often, in truth, meant for the ears of Solon Denney.

The burden was shifted to his poor shoulders with as little concern as if our best citizens had not cooeperated with him in the original move, with grateful applause for its ingenious and fanciful daring.