splay--a violet show. And, as Mrs. Ess Kay had said, "it
was not the right time of the year for violets."

We stood on our feet for hours, smiled yards of smiles, and said the
same things over and over again so many times, that I began to feel
like a phonograph doll which I saw in my first New York shop. Only,
when I ran down nobody wound me up, and I had to go on by myself as
best I could, which was fatiguing, and made the machinery squeak.

But everybody said it was a huge success. The New York papers had each
more than a column about the "function," as they called it, and Mrs.
Ess Kay was piously happy.

I had thought we were very gay before; but after the Violet Tea, from
getting up to going to bed, we never had a moment that hadn't its own
appointed place in the procession of hours, like a bead in a long
rosary.

After breakfast, we went to the Casino, to play tennis, listen to the
concert, or pretend to, and to gabble. There, we would meet everybody
we knew; and it was odd to see the calm, but slightly conscious air of
superiority with which the Everybodies, going in or out, passed the
poor nobodies assembled to watch the Casino entrance. Just as the
middle and lower class people stand till they are ready to drop, only
to see the Queen drive into the Park, or leave Buckingham Palace
dreadfully bored, to open a bridge, so these Americans jostle each
other to see their millionaires and especially millionaires, going to
enjoy themselves. Fancy if Londoners reduced themselves to a state of
collapse for the pleasure of seeing Mr. Beit take off his hat to Mrs.
Wertheimer! But the millionaires in America seem to be like our
aristocracy, only more important, for the non millionaires take a great
deal more trouble to stare at them than the common people do at us.

After the Casino, there was always the beach, and the most delightful
things happened at the beach. It was never twice the same. Then, we
would lunch with some one, or some one would lunch with us at The
Moorings. Afterwards there would be a drive, calls to make, perhaps two
or three wonderful "At Homes," or concerts, with great singers and
entertainers from New York; twenty minutes' rest, and then a scramble
to dress for dinner, with a "dinner dance" to follow, or amateur
theatricals.

Of course, as I haven't been presented yet, and don't know anything
about what the Season is like in Town, except what Vic has told me, I
can't judge of the differences at