t it is the city editor's
orders, and we have to do the best we can."

"You are a woman, and understand such matters, so I think you had better
do that yourself," Mrs. Sanderson replied.

The reporter thanked her and withdrew. When she had gone Duncan said
wonderingly: "We have society reporters in New York, but they never go
quite so far as to ask one to describe oneself. Who reads such
particulars anyway?"

"Ask Dr. Maccanfrae, he is wiser than I," she replied.

"Dr. Maccanfrae, who should you say read the society columns of the
newspapers?" he asked.

"People who expect to find their names in print, and people who think
their names ought to be in print, to say nothing of those who read
society columns, as they do society scandals, in order to get a
reflection of the tinsel and tarnish of an unknown world."

"That must include a great portion of newspaper readers," replied
Duncan.

"Precisely; that is why society scandals and fashions occupy so large a
portion of our papers," the Doctor replied. "But there comes the
conductor, so I must get back to my place."

"Won't you remain here, Doctor?" said Mrs. Sanderson.

"No, I thank you. I only came in to pay my respects, and, as I have a
musical friend with me, I must get back to him."

The Doctor hurried away and the little man away down in front lifted his
baton. Ninety musicians watched the beat of the first bar, and, as the
baton fell, sixty bows moved in unison, and trumpets, horns, trombones,
and reeds, added their strains, while the act drop slowly rose
disclosing the great stage, gorgeously set as Otello's audience-chamber.

"I must tell you an amusing tale about 'Otello,'" whispered Mrs.
Sanderson to Duncan Grahame. "I was in Rome when the opera was brought
out there, and went with the American minister and his wife. Revere was
their name and they came from Tallahassee. He had been a congressman,
but she had never been away from home until she went as the wife of our
representative in Austria, so you can imagine her ignorance of the
world. She watched the opera quietly until she noticed that the black
Otello bore some relation to the white Desdemona. That made her hem and
fidget, but when Otello embraced his wife, she put up her fan in
disgust, and said indignantly to me: 'How outrageous! I assure you such
conduct would not be tolerated in Tallahassee.'"

Grahame laughed, and then they listened to the grand music of Verdi for
a while, but it was not