The Newport season was not, after all, very gay. Society has become so
complex that it takes more than one Englishman to make a season. Were it
the business of the chronicler to study the evolution of this lovely
watering-place from its simple, unconventional, animated days of natural
hospitality and enjoyment, to its present splendid and palatial isolation
of a society--during the season--which finds its chief satisfaction in
the rivalry of costly luxury and in an atmosphere of what is deemed
aristocratic exclusiveness, he would have a theme attractive to the
sociologist. But such a noble study is not for him. His is the humble
task of following the fortunes of certain individuals, more or less
conspicuous in this astonishing flowering of a democratic society, who
have become dear to him by long acquaintance.

It was not the fault of Mrs. Mavick that the season was so frigid, its
glacial stateliness only now and then breaking out in an illuminating
burst of festivity, like the lighting-up of a Montreal ice-palace. Her
spacious house was always open, and her efforts, in charity enterprises
and novel entertainments, were untiring to stimulate a circulation in the
languid body of society.

This clever woman never showed more courage or more tact than in this
campaign, and was never more agreeable and fascinating. She was even
popular. If she was not accepted as a leader, she had a certain standing
with the leaders, as a person of vivacity and social influence. Any
company was eager for her presence. Her activity, spirit, and affability
quite won the regard of the society reporters, and those who know Newport
only through the newspapers would have concluded that the Mavicks were on
the top of the wave. She, however, perfectly understood her position,
and knew that the sweet friends, who exchanged with her, whenever they
met, the conventional phrases of affection commented sarcastically upon
her ambitions for her daughter. It was, at the same time, an ambition
that they perfectly understood, and did not condemn on any ethical
grounds. Evelyn was certainly a sweet girl, rather queerly educated, and
never likely to make much of a dash, but she was an heiress, and why
should not her money be put to the patriotic use of increasing the
growing Anglo-American cordiality?

Lord Montague was, of course, a favorite, in demand for all functions,
and in request for the private and intimate entertainments. He was an
authority in the