one comfort, anyhow. You
don't know a great many people on this side of the river yet, and so I
guess I sha'n't have to put hoops on the house this time, unless you
fetch all Brooklyn across the new bridge."

Mrs. Hilbrough did not care to contradict her husband now that he had
relented. But as for crowding the house she felt sure there was a way to
do it, if she could only find it, and she was resolved not to have fewer
people than Mrs. Masters, and that without depleting Brooklyn.

What she needed was an adviser. She went over the bead-roll of her
acquaintance and found nobody eligible. Those who could have pointed out
to her what were the proper steps to take in such a case were just the
people to whom she was not willing to expose herself in her unfledged
condition. At last she felt obliged to ask Mr. Hilbrough about it.

"Don't you know somebody, my dear, who knows New York better than I do,
who could give me advice about our reception?" This was her opening of
the matter as she sat crocheting by the glowing grate of anthracite in
the large front room on the second floor, while her husband smoked, and
read his evening paper.

"I? How should I know?" he said, laying down the paper. "I don't know
many New York ladies."

"Not a woman! I mean some man. You can't speak to a woman about such
things so well as you can to a man;" and she spread her fancy-work out
over her knee and turned her head on one side to get a good view of its
general effect.

"I should think you would rather confide in a woman." Hilbrough looked
puzzled and curious as he said this.

"You don't understand," she said. "A woman doesn't like to give herself
away to another woman. Women always think you ridiculous if you don't
understand everything, and they remember and talk about it. But a man
likes to give information to a woman. I suppose men like to have a woman
look up to them." Mrs. Hilbrough laughed at the explanation, which was
not quite satisfactory to herself.

"Well," said Hilbrough, after a minute's amused meditation, "the men I
know are all like me. They are business men, and are rather dragged into
society, I suppose, by their wives, and by"--he chuckled merrily at this
point--"by the debts they owe to social position, you know. I don't
believe there's a man in the bank that wouldn't be as likely to ask me
about what coat he ought to wear on any occasion as to give me any
information on the subject. Yes, there is one man. That's