"Oh, I'm such a stranger in Boston--I've lived abroad so long--that I
don't know. One hears all kinds of things. But I'm so glad you're not one
of those--pessimists!"

"Well," said Mr. Mavering, still thoughtfully, "I don't know that I can
speak by the card exactly. I can't say how it is now. I haven't been at a
Class Day spread since my own Class Day; I haven't even been at
Commencement more than once or twice. But in my time here we didn't
expect the young ladies to show us attentions; at any rate, we didn't
wait for them to do it. We were very glad, to be asked to meet them, and
we thought it an honour if the young ladies would let us talk or dance
with them, or take them to picnics. I don't think that any of them could
complain of want of attention."

"Yes," said Mrs. Pasmer, "that's what I preached, that's what I
prophesied, when I brought my daughter home from Europe. I told her that
a girl's life in America was one long triumph; but they say now that
girls have more attention in London even than in Cambridge. One hears
such dreadful things!"

"Like what?" asked Mr. Mavering, with the unserious interest which Mrs.
Primer made most people feel in her talk.

"Oh; it's too vast a subject. But they tell you about charming girls
moping the whole evening through at Boston parties, with no young men to
talk with, and sitting from the beginning to the end of an assembly and
not going on the floor once. They say that unless a girl fairly throws
herself at the young men's heads she isn't noticed. It's this terrible
disproportion of the sexes that's at the root of it, I suppose; it
reverses everything. There aren't enough young men to go half round, and