ere
those who could introduce her to people she desired to know in New York.
She excused herself from calling on the most of her trans-East-River
acquaintances by urging that it is so much farther from New York to
Brooklyn than it is from Brooklyn to New York, you know. She attended
several large evening receptions in New York, and drank five o'clock tea
at six in the evening at a good many places. She thus made
acquaintances, while with a clever woman's tact she kept her wits about
her and began to "get the hang of the thing," as she expressed it to one
of her confidential friends. Meantime she was as constant in her
attendance at the opera as she had been at the prayer-meeting in former
days.

It was at the beginning of her second winter in New York that she served
notice on Hilbrough that she meant to give a reception; or, as she put
it, "We must give a reception." The children had gone to school, the
butler was otherwise engaged, and there was nobody but a waitress
present.

Hilbrough's face was of that sunny, sanguine sort which always seems to
indicate that things are booming, to borrow a phrase from our modern
argot. His plump, cheery countenance, and the buoyant spontaneity of his
laugh, inspired a confidence which had floated his craft over more than
one financial shoal. But when Mrs. Hilbrough proposed a reception, just
as he finished his coffee, he became meditative, leaned his two large
arms on the table, and made a careful inspection of the china cup: his
wife--Brooklyn woman that she was--had lately made a journey across the
new bridge to buy the set at Ovington's.

"You don't mean one of those stupid crushes," he began, "where all the
people outside are trying to butt their way in, and all those inside are
wishing to heaven that they were well out again--like so many June bugs
and millers on a summer night bumping against both sides of a window
with a candle in it?" Hilbrough finished with a humorous little chuckle
at his own comparison.

"Well," rejoined Mrs. Hilbrough, firmly, "a reception is the thing to
give. We owe it to our social position."

"Social position be hanged!" said Hilbrough, half in vexation, but still
laughing, while his wife tried by frowning to remind him that the use of
such words in the presence of a servant was very improper.

"It seems as though I never could get square with that thing you call
social position. I pay all my other debts and take receipts in full, but
the mo