"What do you think," I said, "of their having come up this morning
and tried to get rooms at our house?"

"Yes; they told me."

"And don't you call that rather forth-putting? It seems to me that
it was taking a mean advantage of my brags."

"It was perfectly innocent in them. But now, dearest, don't be
tiresome. I know that you like them as well as I do, and I will
take all your little teasing affectations for granted. The question
is, what can we do for them?"

"And the answer is, I don't in the least know. There isn't any
society life at Saratoga that I can see; and if there is, we are not
in it. How could we get any one else in? I see that's what you're
aiming at. Those public socialities at the big hotels they could
get into as well as we could; but they wouldn't be anywhere when
they got there, and they wouldn't know what to do. You know what
hollow mockeries those things are. Don't you remember that hop we
went to with the young Braceys the first summer? If those girls
hadn't waltzed with each other they wouldn't have danced a step the
whole evening."

"I know, I know," sighed my wife; "it was terrible. But these
people are so very unworldly that don't you think they could be
deluded into the belief that they were seeing society if we took a
little trouble? You used to be so inventive! You could think up
something now if you tried."