ity that didn't seem quite a
necessity yet. I'm very sorry," he said again, and this time with more
comprehensive regret. "I shouldn't like to have seemed remiss with a
man who has been so considerate of me. They are all very good-natured."

"I dare say," said Bromfield Corey, with the satisfaction which no
elder can help feeling in disabling the judgment of a younger man,
"that it won't be too late if I go down to your office with you
to-morrow."

"No, no. I didn't imagine your doing it at once, sir."

"Ah, but nothing can prevent me from doing a thing when once I take the
bit in my teeth," said the father, with the pleasure which men of weak
will sometimes take in recognising their weakness. "How does their new
house get on?"

"I believe they expect to be in it before New Year."

"Will they be a great addition to society?" asked Bromfield Corey, with
unimpeachable seriousness.

"I don't quite know what you mean," returned the son, a little uneasily.

"Ah, I see that you do, Tom."

"No one can help feeling that they are all people of good sense
and--right ideas."

"Oh, that won't do. If society took in all the people of right ideas
and good sense, it would expand beyond the calling capacity of its most
active members. Even your mother's social conscientiousness could not
compass it. Society is a very different sort of thing from good sense
and right ideas. It is based upon them, of course, but the airy,
graceful, winning superstructure which we all know demands different
qualities. Have your friends got these qualities,--which may be felt,
but not defined?"

The son laughed. "To tell you the truth, sir, I don't think they have
the most elemental ideas of society, as we understand it. I don't
believe Mrs. Lapham ever gave a dinner."

"And with all that money!" sighed the father.

"I don't believe they have the habit of wine at table. I suspect that
when they don't drink tea and coffee with their dinner, they drink
ice-water."

"Horrible!" said Bromfield Corey.

"It appears to me that this defines them."

"Oh yes. There are people who give dinners, and who are not
cognoscible. But people who have never yet given a dinner, how is
society to assimilate them?"

"It digests a great many people," suggested the young man.

"Yes; but they have always brought some sort of sauce piquante with
them. Now, as I understand you, these friends of yours have no such
sauce."

"Oh, I don't know abo