Miss Katherine didn't want to go, but Miss Webb made her. For weeks that
Reagan ball had been talked about, and Yorkburg knew things about it
that had never been known about parties before, money not often being
mentioned here.

Everybody knew what this ball was going to cost. Knew the supper was
coming from New York, with white waiters and kid gloves. And what Mrs.
Reagan and her daughters were going to wear. That their dresses had been
made in Europe, and that Mrs. Hamner hadn't been invited, and that more
money was coming to Yorkburg in the shape of one man than had ever been
in it altogether before.

If I just could have put myself invisible on a picture-frame and looked
down on that fleeting show I would have done it. But not being able to
work that miracle, I just heard what was going round, and it was very
interesting, the things I heard.

Miss Webb and Miss Katherine and I think just alike about Mrs. Reagan. I
know, for I heard them talking one night just before the ball.

"But why in the name of Heaven should I go if I don't want to?" said
Miss Katherine, and she put her feet on the fender and lay back in her
big rose-covered chair. "I don't like her, or her family, the English
she speaks, or the books she reads. Why, then, should I go to her
parties? I'm not going!"

"Oh yes, you are." And Miss Webb put some more coal on the fire and made
it blaze. "Knowledge of life requires a knowledge of humanity In all its
subdivisions. Mrs. Reagan is a new sub. As a curio, she's worth the