A pleasant English writer has a lively paper on the advantages of being a "cantankerous fool," in which he goes to show that men or women of inferior moral parts, little self-control, and great selfishness, often acquire an absolute dominion over the circle in which they move, merely by the exercise of these traits.

Every one being anxious to please and pacify them, and keep the peace with them, there is a constant succession of anxious compliances and compromises going on around them; by all of which they are benefited in getting their own will and way.
The one person who will not give up, and cannot be expected to be considerate or accommodating, comes at last to rule the whole circle.
He is counted on like the fixed facts of nature; everybody else must turn out for him.

So Lillie reigned in Springdale.

In every little social gathering where she appeared, the one uneasy question was, would she have a good time, and anxious provision made to that end.

Lillie had declared that reading aloud was a bore, which was definitive against reading-parties.