"natty"; they were
"swagger" and "smart" and "swell."

However, the horse was really a small part of this show; before one had
sat out an afternoon he realized that the function was in reality a
show of Society. For six or seven hours during the day the broad
promenade would be so packed with human beings that one moved about
with difficulty; and this throng gazed towards the ring almost
never--it stared up into the boxes. All the year round the discontented
millions of the middle classes read of the doings of the "smart set";
and here they had a chance to come and see them-alive, and real, and
dressed in their showiest costumes. Here was all the grand monde, in
numbered boxes, and with their names upon the programmes, so that one
could get them straight. Ten thousand people from other cities had come
to New York on purpose to get a look. Women who lived in
boarding-houses and made their own clothes, had come to get hints; all
the dressmakers in town were present for the same purpose.. Society
reporters had come, with notebooks in hand; and next morning the
imitators of Society all over the United States would read about it, in
such fashion as this: "Mrs. Chauncey Venable was becomingly gowned in
mauve cloth, made with an Eton jacket trimmed with silk braid, and
opening over a chemisette of lace. Her hat was of the same colour,
draped with a great quantity of mauve and orange tulle, and surmounted
with birds of paradise to match. Her furs were silver fox."

The most intelligent of the great metropolitan dailies would print
columns of this sort of material; and as for the "yellow" journals,
they would have discussions of the costumes by "experts," and half a
page of pictures of the most conspicuous of the box-holders. While
Montague sat talking with Mrs. Walling, half a dozen cameras were
snapped at them; and once a young man with a sketch-book placed himself
in front of them and went placidly to work.--Concerning such things the
society dame had three different sets of emotions: first, the one which
she showed in public, that of bored and contemptuous indifference;
second, the one which she expressed to her friends, that of outraged
but helpless indignation; and third, the one which she really felt,
that of triumphant exultation over her rivals, whose pictures were not
published and whose costumes were not described.

It was a great dress parade of society women. One who wished to play a
proper part in it would spen