The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-06-03

for my benefit, Your position depends
 on the people you know"
 With what cherished plans and font hopes and iridescent illusions I made by debut-only to find that it takes skillful navigation and unceasing vigi lance to make girl "go." and that one | doesn't become a belle simply by exist
 ing and being beautiful
 Ah what work, what sacrifice, what
 self-denial, what strategy, what diplo-
 macy, what--shall admit it?--patient
 smiling hypocrisy 1t takes to become a | belle, to be popular.
 'Popular"-I hate the word, | To be popular what hours I have
 spent-and what dollars-r-with dress
 maker and milliner, for though one
 may be as beautiful as an houri one can't be popular without the latest and sweetest things in frocks and hats and | ct ceteras Unless she Is a marriagea- ble milionairess the men won't ask a society girl who is trump to dance, and the women won't ask her to assist at their functions or to come to their
 dinners.
 To be popular, what hours I have spent tramping over golf links and bump- bunp- pumping on horses I'm deathly afraid of, simply because it's
 the thing to be athletic. I hate every
 form of athletics except waltz and a
 two-step, but if you're a society girl
 you've got to do whatever is "the thing"--or lose sight of the men.
 To be popular what miles I've
 danced with silly boys who thought they were men, and silly old bachelors who tried to make me think they were boys; how amiably I've laughed at their feeble wit and moth-e eaten jokes: how I've listened and sympathized and flat tered and admired-for belle is not belle unless she had dress coats in her train and a polite mob struggling for a place on her dancing card. A belle is not belle unless she has all the other girls green-eyed with envy, however little she may care for the spells of war she has snatched from them.
 To be popular, what charity work I have done, what church fairs and hos .pital bazars, what benefits for old peo- ple's homes and infants shelters + have toiled for What tickets have sold and flowers and grabbag chances What fortunes I have told, what dolls have dressed, what sofa pillows I have concocted!
 For sweet charitys sake? t,4fl
 To be sure--but also for the Mes- danes So-and-Sos pet charities, be- cause, perpaps, the Mesdames So-and- So gave very nice parties, or very ex- elusive dinners and musicals, or wield ed powerful editorial pencils on fashion able visiting lists. An. the secrets of society's charities, How many an out slider has clambered in by the help of sweet charity. How many a check ju- applied has been the opening wedge to that holy of holies-"our set" Why, we have one leader to-day who literally paved her way in with checks who hade road of liberal contribu- tions as industriously as the Sonoan chiefs made the road of the grateful hearts for Robert Louis Stevenson. And she lays down the laws of her par Licular clique now, too and outdoes the frostiest in exclusiveness and haughti- ness. At one of her private and par .icuar charity entertainments she called in the services of a clever, we'll pred girl as an entertainer, a girl who lad every qualification except money, md when refreshments were served to he ladies who had taken part this girl vas overlooked as indifferently as if f she were a wax flguSe. She in her in lignation at once called carriage and eft without ceremony.
 But checks always pave the way. There's the case of Mrs. -, well, nev- r mind the name. She married bar el of money, and her husbands family belongs to the sacred one hundred and fifty in New York. But as for the lady t her reputation is beyond uspicion, far beyond. It is an estab ished fact. She has stormed every harity portal with checks-big checks ndll little checks, and middle-sized heeks. She has volunteered them, al- rays to the swellest of the lady pat ons, by mail. The lady patrons have ut their heads together and admired
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