am that ugly
mug!" and he gesticulated at the reflection and it gesticulated back at
him. It was the funniest sight you can imagine, Mamma, and it was not
until the lady meekly demanded if the person he saw sitting by the
"ugly mug" resembled her that he could be convinced, and be got to go
on quietly with his supper. And all the rest of the time he kept
glancing at the glass and muttering to himself like distant thunder,
just as Agnes does when things displease her.

In Paris, at the restaurants one goes to, there is only the one
class--unless, of course, one is doing Montmartre, but I mean the best
ones bourgeoises would not think of thrusting themselves in; and in
London there is only the Ritz and Carlton where one goes, and it is the
rarest thing certainly at the Ritz to see any awful people there. But
here, heaps of the most ordinary are very rich and think they have the
best right, which of course they have if they pay, to enter the most
select places; so the conglomeration even at Sherry's sometimes is too
amusing, and at the mirror place, which society would only go to as a
freak, the company is beyond description. But they all seem such
kindly, jolly people, all amusing themselves, and gay and happy. I like
it, and the courtesy and fatherly kindness of the men to the women is
beautiful, and a lesson to the male creatures of other nations. I have
not yet seen an American man who is not the cavalier servante of his
wife and sisters and daughters. And what flowers they send one!
Everything is generous and opulent.

The dance was such fun, a bal blanc, as only young people were asked,
and they all come without chaperones, so sensible, and all seemed to
have a lovely romp, and enjoy themselves in a far, far greater degree
than we do. It was more like a tenants' ball or a children's party,
they seemed so happy; and towards the end lots of the girls' hair
became untidy and their dresses torn, and the young men's faces damp
and their collars limp.

The house was a perfectly magnificent palace, far up on Fifth Avenue,
which has been built so lately that the taste is faultless; but it was
a rather new family gave the dance, whom Valerie has not yet received.
She thinks she will next year, because the daughter is so lovely and
admired, and everyone else knows them.

At the beginning of the evening some of the girls looked beautiful, but
as a rule much too richly dressed, like married women; only when even
the most ex