myself so much in my life. I should like to make up a party to go to one
somewhere in the Catskills in March. Will you all go? It would be
something to show Mr. Homos. I should like to show him something really
American before he goes home. There's nothing American left in society!"

"You forget the American woman," suggested the gentleman. "She is always
American, and she is always in society."

"Yes," returned our hostess, with a thoughtful air, "you're quite right
in that. One always meets more women than men in society. But it's
because the men are so lazy, and so comfortable at their clubs, they
won't go. They enjoy themselves well enough in society after they get
there, as I tell my husband when he grumbles over having to dress."

"Well," said the gentleman, "a great many things, the day-time things, we
really can't come to, because we don't belong to the aristocratic class,
as you ladies do, and we are busy down-town. But I don't think we are
reluctant about dinner; and the young fellows are nearly always willing
to go to a ball, if the supper's good and it's a house where they don't
feel obliged to dance. But what do _you_ think, Mr. Homos?" he
asked. "How does your observation coincide with my experience?"

I answered that I hardly felt myself qualified to speak, for though I had
assisted at the different kinds of society rites he had mentioned, thanks
to the hospitality of my friends in New York, I knew the English
functions only from a very brief stay in England on my way here, and from
what I had read of them in English fiction and in the relations of our
emissaries. He inquired into our emissary system, and the company
appeared greatly interested in such account of it as I could briefly
give.