The guests had been selected with a boldness and
discrimination in which the initiated recognised the
firm hand of Catherine the Great. Associated with such
immemorial standbys as the Selfridge Merrys, who were
asked everywhere because they always had been, the
Beauforts, on whom there was a claim of relationship,
and Mr. Sillerton Jackson and his sister Sophy (who
went wherever her brother told her to), were some of
the most fashionable and yet most irreproachable of
the dominant "young married" set; the Lawrence
Leffertses, Mrs. Lefferts Rushworth (the lovely widow),
the Harry Thorleys, the Reggie Chiverses and young
Morris Dagonet and his wife (who was a van der
Luyden). The company indeed was perfectly assorted,
since all the members belonged to the little inner group
of people who, during the long New York season,
disported themselves together daily and nightly with
apparently undiminished zest.

Forty-eight hours later the unbelievable had
happened; every one had refused the Mingotts' invitation
except the Beauforts and old Mr. Jackson and his sister.
The intended slight was emphasised by the fact that
even the Reggie Chiverses, who were of the Mingott
clan, were among those inflicting it; and by the
uniform wording of the notes, in all of which the writers
"regretted that they were unable to accept," without
the mitigating plea of a "previous engagement" that
ordinary courtesy prescribed.