Francisco society in their day. The accent was on the "who." Bob Cheever,
whose grandmother had asked or answered the same question in dark old
double parlors filled with black walnut and carved oak, would have
muttered, "Oh, hell!" but Mr. Dwight replied sympathetically: "Something
very common, I believe-south of Market Street. But her father was very
clever, rose to be a foreman of the iron works, and finally went into
business and prospered in a small way. He sent his daughter to Europe to be
educated...and even you could hardly tell her from the real thing."

"And you go down to Burlingame, I suppose! That is a very nest of these new
people, and I am told they spend their time drinking and gambling."

He set his large rather hard lips. "No, I have never been asked down to
Burlingame-nor down the Peninsula anywhere. You see, I am only asked out in
town because an unmarried dancing man is always welcome if there is nothing
wrong with his manners. To be asked for intimate week-ends is another
matter. But I don't fancy Burlingame is half as bad as it is represented to
be. They go in tremendously for sport, you know, and that is healthy and
takes up a good deal of time. After all when people are very rich and have
more leisure than they know what to do with--"

"Many of the old set in Alta, San Mateo, Atherton and Menlo Park have
wealth and leisure-not vulgar fortunes, but enough-and for the most part
they live quite as they did in the old days."

His eyes lit up. "Ah, San Mateo, Alta, Atherton, Menlo Park. There you have
a real landed aristocracy. The Burlingame set must realize that they would
be nobodies for all their wealth if they could not call at all those old
communities down the Peninsula."