“3.  Is the Sylvia Latham, to whom I have been a friendly chaperon during my recent travels, related to the Lathams who are building the finest house on the Bluffs?  You have never seen the head of the house, but his initials are S.J.; he is said to be a power in Wall Street, and the family consists of a son and daughter, neither of whom has yet appeared, although the house is quite ready for occupancy.

“(My German teacher has arrived.)”

* * * * *

“January 22d.

“1.  Why am I upset?  For several reasons, some of which have been clouding the horizon for many years, others crashing up like a thunder-storm.

“I have for a long time past noticed a certain apathy in the social atmosphere of the little circle that formed my world.  I gave up any pretensions to general New York society after my father’s death, which came at a time when the social centre was splitting into several cliques; distances increased, New Year’s calling ceased, going to the country for even midwinter holidays came in vogue, and cosmopolitanism finally overcame the neighbourhood community interest of my girlhood.  People stopped making evening calls uninvited; you no longer knew who lived in the street or even next house, save by accident; the cosey row of private dwellings opposite turned to lodging houses and sometimes worse; friends who had not seen me for a few months seemed surprised to find me living in the same place.  When I began to go about again, one day Cordelia Martin (she was a Bleecker—­your father will remember her) met me in the street and asked me to come in the next evening informally to dinner and meet her sister, an army officer’s wife, who would be there en route from one post to another, and have an old-time game of whist.

“I went, glad to see old friends, and anticipating a pleasant evening.  I wore a new soft black satin gown slightly V in front, some of my best lace, and my pearl ornaments; I even wondered if the latter were in good taste at a family dinner.  You know I never dwell much upon attire, but it is sometimes necessary when it is in a way epoch making.

“A butler had supplanted Cordelia’s usual cordial waitress; he presented a tray for the card that I had not brought and said ‘second story front.’  This seemed strange to me, as Cordelia herself had always come to the stairway to greet me when the door opened.

“The ‘second story front’ had been done over into a picturesque but useless boudoir, a wood floor polished like glass was dotted by white fur islands; the rich velvet carpets, put down a few years before, had in fact disappeared from the entire house.  A maid, anything but cordial, removed my wrap, looking me and it over very deliberately as she did so.  I wondered if by mistake I had been bidden to a grand function—­no, there were no visible signs of other guests.