And when he said that, a great rush of remembrance came over me, and I
felt I should love to see him again, and I told the Senator so, and how
we had met him, and just then Tom joined us and we have arranged it
all; when we have been to Philadelphia to stay with Kitty Bond for a
day or two, we are going right out West, and shall all meet the private
car at Los Angeles and go to the camps. "Lola" and her husband are
coming, too, and anyone else we like; and the Vicomte immediately
proposed himself, as he said he is deeply interested in mining and
wants to invest some money. I think we shall have a superb time, don't
you, Mamma? And I am longing to be off, but we have still some more
social things to do, and go to one dance.

It is so late in the year all the balls are finished and lots of people
have already gone to Europe. They are having this one on purpose for
us, because Octavia said she wanted to see some young men and girls,
and how they amuse themselves. The girls have a perfectly emancipated
and glorious time, and are petted and spoilt to a degree. They don't
come much to the ladies' lunches, but they have girls' lunches of their
own, and their own motor cars and horses, or whatever else they want,
and do not have to ask their mothers' leave about anything.

Among the married women there are two distinct sets here in the inner
cream, the one which Valerie leads, and which has everything like
England, and does not go in for any of those wonderful entertainments
where elephants do the waiting with their trunks, or you sit in golden
swings over a lake while swans swim with the food on trays on their
backs--I am exaggerating, of course, but you know what I mean. Valerie
says all that is in shocking taste, which of course it is. She never
has anything eccentric, only splendid presents at her cotillons, and
all the diplomats from Washington come over, and the whole tone of her
house is exactly as it is at home, except that many of them are
brighter and more amusing than we are.

Then the other set is the "go one better set,"--that is the best way I
can describe it. If one has a party one week, another must have a finer
one the week after, and so on, until thousands and thousands of dollars
are spent on flowers, for instance, for one afternoon; and in it
nothing is like England. I believe it must be purely American, or
perhaps one ought to say New York.

These two sets meet at Newport, but they won't speak to any ot