believe they will
be as nice as your cousin."
"Of course they will like you. Everybody likes you. The aunts are just
a little old-fashioned, that is all. Habit has made them draw a social
circle with a small radius. Some have one kind of circle, some another.
Of course my aunts are sorry for any one who is not descended from the
Van Schlovenhovens--the old Van Schlovenhoven had the first brewery of
the colony in the time of Peter Stuyvesant. In New York it's a family
matter, in Philadelphia it's geographical. There it's a question whether
you live within the lines of Chestnut Street and Spruce Street--outside
of these in the city you are socially impossible: Mrs. Cortlandt told me
that two Philadelphia ladies who had become great friends at a summer
resort--one lived within and the other without the charmed lines--went
back to town together in the autumn. At the station when they parted,
the 'inside' lady said to the other: 'Good-by. It has been such a
pleasure to know you! I suppose I shall see you sometimes at
Moneymaker's!' Moneymaker's is the Bon Marche of Philadelphia."
The music ceased; the band were hurrying away; the people all over the
grounds were rising to go, lingering a little, reluctant to leave the
enchanting scene. Irene wished, with a sigh, that it might never end;
unreal as it was, it was more native to her spirit than that future which
her talk with Stanhope had opened to her contemplation. An ill-defined
apprehension possessed her in spite of the reassuring presence of her
lover and her perfect confidence in the sincerity of his passion; and
this feeling was somehow increased by the appearance of Mrs. Glow with
her mother; she could not shake off the uneasy suggestion of the
contrast.
At the hour when the ladies went to their rooms the day was just
beginning for a certain class of the habitues. The parlors were nearly
deserted, and few chairs were occupied on the piazzas, but the ghosts of
another generation seemed to linger, especially in the offices and
barroom. Flitting about were to be seen the social heroes who had a
notoriety thirty and forty years ago in the newspapers. This dried-up
old man in a bronze wig, scuffling along in list slippers, was a famous
criminal lawyer in his day; this gentleman, who still wears an air of
gallantry, and is addressed as General, had once a reputation for
successes in the drawing-room as well as on the field of Mars; here is a
genuine old beau, with the u
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