our
acquaintance with our neighbors. In many cases they are openly and
avowedly a general tribute paid at intervals to society, for and in
consideration of which you are to sit with closed blinds and doors and
be let alone for the rest of the year. Mrs. Bogus, for instance, lives
to keep her house in order, her closets locked, her silver counted and
in the safe, and her china-closet in undisturbed order. Her 'best
things' are put away with such admirable precision, in so many wrappings
and foldings, and secured with so many a twist and twine, that to get
them out is one of the seven labors of Hercules, not to be lightly or
unadvisedly taken in hand, but reverently, discreetly, and once for
all, in an annual or biennial party. Then says Mrs. Bogus, 'For Heaven's
sake, let's have every creature we can think of, and have 'em all over
with at once. For pity's sake, let's have no driblets left that we shall
have to be inviting to dinner or to tea. No matter whether they can come
or not,--only send them the invitation, and our part is done; and, thank
Heaven! we shall be free for a year.'"

"Yes," said my wife; "a great stand-up party bears just the same
relation towards the offer of real hospitality and good-will as Miss
Sally Brass's offer of meat to the little hungry Marchioness, when, with
a bit uplifted on the end of a fork, she addressed her, 'Will you have
this piece of meat? No? Well, then, remember and don't say you haven't
had meat _offered_ to you!' You are invited to a general jam, at the
risk of your life and health; and if you refuse, don't say you haven't
had hospitality offered to you. All our debts are wiped out and our
slate clean; now we will have our own closed doors, no company and no
trouble, and our best china shall repose undisturbed on its shelves.
Mrs. Bogus says she never could exist in the way that Mrs. Easygo does,
with a constant drip of company,--two or three to breakfast one day,
half a dozen to dinner the next, and little evening gatherings once or
twice a week. It must keep her house in confusion all the time; yet, for
real social feeling, real exchange of thought and opinion, there is more
of it in one half-hour at Mrs. Easygo's than in a dozen of Mrs. Bogus's
great parties.

"The fact is, that Mrs. Easygo really does like the society of human
beings. She is genuinely and heartily social; and, in consequence,
though she has very limited means, and no money to spend in giving great
entertai