across Mrs. Denton Frostwinch's handsome drawing-room. Mrs. Frostwinch
belonged, beyond the possibility of any cavilling doubt, to the most
exclusive circle of fashionable Boston society. Boston society is a
complex and enigmatical thing, full of anomalies, bounded by wavering
and uncertain lines, governed by no fixed standards, whether of wealth,
birth, or culture, but at times apparently leaning a little toward each
of these three great factors of American social standing.

It is seldom wise to be sure that at any given Boston house whatever,
one will not find a more or less strong dash of democratic flavor in
general company, and there are those who discover in this fact
evidences of an agreeable and lofty republicanism. At Mrs. Frostwinch's
one was less likely than in most houses to encounter socially doubtful
characters, a fact which Arthur Fenton, who was secretly flattered to
be invited here, had once remarked to his wife was an explanation of
the dulness of these entertainments.

For Mrs. Frostwinch's parties were apt to be anything but lively. One
was morally elevated by being able to look on the comely and high-bred
face of Mrs. Bodewin Ranger, but that fine old lady had a sort of
religious scruple against saying anything in particular in company, a
relic of the days of her girlhood, when cleverness was not the fashion
in her sex and when she had been obliged to suppress herself lest she
outshine the high-minded and courtly but dreadfully dull gentleman she
married.

One had here the pleasure of shaking one of the white fingers of Mr.
Plant, the most exquisite _gourmet_ in Boston, whose only daughter had
made herself ridiculous by a romantic marriage with a country farmer.
The Stewart Hubbards, who were the finest and fiercest aristocrats in