mamma was fairly pale with anxiety, as Mrs. Center, who gives the swell dinner dances, was to dine with her for the first time, and it was important to make an impression, so that I might be invited to one or possibly more of these affairs, and so receive a sort of social hall mark, without which, it seems, no young New York woman is complete.  I didn’t know the whole of the reason then, to be sure, or very possibly I should not have worked so hard.  Still, poor mamma is so in earnest about all these little intricacies, and thinks them so important to my happiness and fate, or something else she has in view, that I am trying not to undeceive her until the winter is over.”

Sylvia spoke with careless gayety, which was to my mind somehow belied by the expression of her eyes.

“I asked Perkins to get out the Dutch silver, toys and all, that mamma has been collecting ever since I can remember, and bring down a long narrow mirror in a plain silver frame that backs my mantel shelf.  Then I begged mother to go for her beauty sleep and let me wrestle with the flowers, also to be sure to wear her new Van Dyck gown to dinner.

“This was not according to her plan, but she went perforce.  I knew that she felt extremely dubious, and, trembling at my rashness, I set at work to make a Dutch flower garden, with the mirror for a canal down the centre.  Perkins and his understudies, Potts and Parker, stood watching me with grim faces, exchanging glances that seemed to question my sanity when I told Parker to go out to the corner where I had seen workmen that afternoon dump a load of little white pebbles, such as are used in repairing the paving, and bring me in a large basketful.  But when the garden was finished, with the addition of the little Delft windmills I brought home, and the family of Dutch peasant dolls that we bought at the Antwerp fair, Perkins was absolutely moved to express his approval.”

“What effect did the garden have upon the dance invitations?” asked Miss Lavinia, highly amused, and also more eager to hear of the doings of society than she would care to confess.

“Excellent!  Mrs. Center asked mother who her decorator was, and said she should certainly employ him; which, it seems, was a compliment so rare that it was equivalent to the falling of the whole social sky at my feet, Mr. Bell said, who let the secret out.  I was invited to the last two of the series,—­for they come to a conspicuous stop and turn into theatre parties when Lent begins,—­and I really enjoyed myself, the only drawback being that so few of the really tall and steady men care for dancing.  Most of my partners were very short, and loitered so, that I felt top-heavy, and it reminded me of play-days, when I used to practise waltzing with the library fire tongs.  I dislike long elaborate dinners, though mamma delights in them, and says one may observe so much that is useful, but I do like to dance with a partner who moves, and not simply progresses in languid ripples, for dancing is one of the few indoor things that one is allowed to do for oneself.