N'York, for a couple of months at least, to a hotel, and what would that
Evan of yours do trailing round to dances? For you're not built for it,
though I did once think you'd be a go in society with that innocent-wise
way, and your nose in the air, when you don't like people, would pass for
family pride. I'd wager soon, in a few years, he'd stop picking
boutonnières in the garden every morning and sailing down to that 8:15
train as cool as if he owned time, if those boys were girls! Though if
Jenks-Smith gets the Bluff Colony he's planned under way next spring,
there'll soon be some riding and golfing men hereabouts that'll shake
things up a bit,--bridge whist, poker, and perhaps red and black to help
out in the between-seasons." (I little thought then what this colony and
shaking would come to mean.)

"Money or not, it's hard lines with daughters now--work and poor pay for
the mothers mostly. You know that Mrs. Townley that used to visit me? He
was a banker and very rich; died four years ago, and left his wife with
one son, who lived west, and five daughters, four that travelled in pairs
and an odd one,--all well fixed and living in a big house in one of those
swell streets, east of the park, where never less than ten in help are
kept. Well, if you'll believe it, she's living alone with a pet dog and a
companion, except in summer, when the Chicago son and his wife and babies
make her a good visit down at North East, the only home comfort she has.

"All the girls married to foreigners? Not a blessed one. Two were bookish
and called literary, but not enough to break out into anything; they
didn't agree with society (had impossible foreheads that ran nearly back
to their necks, and thin hair); they went to college just to get the name
of it and to kill time, but when they got through they didn't rub along
well at home; called taking an interest in the house beneath them and the
pair that liked society frivolous; so they took a flat (I mean