tter, the
Hilbroughs do not take pains to date it at all. For it is a rule of good
society that as soon as you arrive you affect to have always been there.
Of other ascents men boast; of social success, rarely. Your millionaire,
for example,--and millionairism is getting so common as to be almost
vulgar,--your millionaire never tires of telling you how he worked the
multiplication table until cents became dimes, and dimes well sown
blossomed presently into dollars, till hundreds swelled to hundreds of
thousands, and the man who had been a blithe youth but twenty years
before became the possessor of an uneasy tumor he calls a fortune. Once
this narrative is begun no matter that you beat your breast with
reluctance to hear out the tedious tale, while loud bassoons perchance
are calling you to wedding feasts. Pray hear the modern Whittington with
patience, good reader! The recital of this story is his main consolation
for the boredom of complicated possession in which his life is
inextricably involved--his recoupment for the irksome vigilance with
which he must defend his hoard against the incessant attacks of cheats
and beggars, subscription papers and poor relations. But the man who has
won his way in that illusive sphere we call society sends to swift
oblivion all his processes. In society no man asks another, "How did you
get here?" or congratulates him on moving among better people than he
did ten years ago. Theoretically society is stationary. Even while
breathless from climbing, the newcomer affects to have been always atop.

Warren Hilbrough's family had risen with his bettered circumstances from
a two-story brick in Degraw street, Brooklyn, by the usual stages to a
brownstone "mansion" above the reservoir in New York. When he came to be
vice-president of the Bank of Manhadoes, Hilbrough had in a measure
reached the goal of his ambition. He felt that he could slacken the
strenuousness of his exertions and let his fortune expand naturally
under prudent management. But Mrs. Hilbrough was ten years younger than
her husband, and her ambition was far from spent. She found herself only
on the threshold of her career. In Brooklyn increasing prosperity had
made her a leader in church fairs and entertainments. The "Church
Social" had often assembled at her house, and she had given a reception
in honor of the minister when he came back from the Holy Land--a party
which the society reporter of the "Brooklyn Daily Eagle" had pr