“And besides, you know,” said Mrs. Wilcox, “all our young people will go, whether we go or not.  Your Tom was at my house yesterday; and he is going with my girls:  they are all just as wild about it as they can be, and say that it is the greatest fun that has been heard of this summer.”

In fact, there was not a man, woman, or child, in a circle of fifteen miles round, who could show shade or color of an invitation, who was not out in full dress at Mrs. John Seymour’s party.  People in a city may pick and choose their entertainments, and she who gives a party there may reckon on a falling off of about one-third, for various other attractions; but in the country, where there is nothing else stirring, one may be sure that not one person able to stand on his feet will be missing.  A party in a good old sleepy, respectable country place is a godsend.  It is equal to an earthquake, for suggesting materials of conversation; and in so many ways does it awaken and vivify the community, that one may doubt whether, after all, it is not a moral benefaction, and the giver of it one to be ranked in the noble army of martyrs.

Everybody went.  Even Mrs. Lennox, when she had sufficiently swallowed her moral principles, sent in all haste to New York for an elegant spick and span new dress from Madame de Tullegig’s, expressly for the occasion.  Was she to be outshone by unprincipled upstarts?  Perish the thought!  It was treason to the cause of virtue, and the standing order of society.  Of course, the best thing to be done is to put certain people down, if you can; but, if you cannot do that, the next best thing is to outshine them in their own way.  It may be very naughty for them to be so dressy and extravagant, and very absurd, improper, immoral, unnecessary, and in bad taste; but still, if you cannot help it, you may as well try to do the same, and do a little more of it.  Mrs. Lennox was in a feverish state till all her trappings came from New York.  The bill was something stunning; but, then, it was voted by the young people that she had never looked so splendidly in her life; and she comforted herself with marking out a certain sublime distance and reserve of manner to be observed towards Mrs. Seymour and the Follingsbees.

The young people, however, came home delighted.  Tom, aged twenty-two, instructed his mother that Follingsbee was a brick, and a real jolly fellow; and he had accepted an invitation to go on a yachting cruise with him the next month.  Jane Lennox, moreover, began besetting her mother to have certain details in their house rearranged, with an eye to the Seymour glorification.

“Now, Jane dear, that’s just the result of allowing you to visit in this flash, vulgar genteel society,” said the troubled mamma.

“Bless your heart, mamma, the world moves on, you know; and we must move with it a little, or be left behind.  For my part, I’m perfectly ashamed of the way we let things go at our house.  It really is not respectable.  Now, I like Mrs. Follingsbee, for my part:  she’s clever and amusing.  It was fun to hear all about the balls at the Tuileries, and the opera and things in Paris.  Mamma, when are we going to Paris?”