Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-09
BY EDWARD F. BENSON.
Copyright 1905. by E. r. Benson All rights reserved,

centers of smartness. AS a matter of fact
they were only turning their houses into
free restaurants for the wealthy unemploy-
ed. to which, with ordinary common sense,
the world went to be fed. There were, of
course, others, who had something else to
back their spending capacity, people who
were witty, agreeable. with the power to
charm. Certainly their wealth helped such
of those who yearned for social success,
but 1t was not their wealth that made it
for them, but their wit. People would al
ways come to be fed, If the food was de-
cent: then they wiped their mouths and
went their Journey while their poor, self
deceived hostesses thought that they were
going hand after hand up the ladder. Lily
Thurso-being by birth half American
was compatriot of many of these. and
her pretty little nose. slightly tiptilted, in
stinctively went in the air when she
thought of them. You could not get on or
by spending money. In New York you
could. and her compatriots she thought
lacked proper sense of moral geography.
Wealth in London brought to your house
the Hon. Mrs. Not-Quite-in-it, in shoals,
but that was all. Or if you flew a little
higher in the way of mere intelligence, eat
able dinners would bring to your house the
keepers of the smaller ma t.onal collections,
plump little gentlemen, for the most part,
of harmless but insignificant nature, who
seethed with second-rate and unreliable in
formation both about the world and about
their art, and discovered secondrate Ii
&,
in fact. could easily be secured by money,
but nothing else.
At this moment she was sitting with Jim
Stratton. her husbands younger brother
and Ruby Majendie, who, she hoped, was
going to persuade Jim to marry her, for the
sake of the happiness of them both, having
lunch at one of those little round tables in
order to see how the room looked, and that
while they ate, since hours were precious.
Ruby and she could direct the efforts of
those who were putting down carpets,
bringing in flowers and decorating tables.
Lady Thurso had just given orders that all
the hydrangeas~ of which perfect copse
had been made at the far end of the room,
should be taken away again, for really the
Italian fireplace was much more decorative
than these blue bossomed shrubs.
Besides, hydrangeas always remind me
Of Mr.. Turner James, she said in paren-
thesis
And what's that?" asked JIM
"Oh, it's a little art gentleman; of course
you know him, because he is always the
one person there when one lunches or dimes
out whom one doesn't know. He looks as
if he was grown in pot in a moderately
warm dollhouse don't know why 1
thought Of him at this moment-oh, yes,
because of the hydrangeas You know when
hydrangeas begin to get stout. Yes, take
them all away" she called out to the for
list. who still appeared to want to leave the
Choicest in the CRATE.
The choicest" were therefore removed
also. and while this was being done, they
could talk of other things.
Lady Thurso. inheriting the American love
of doing something which had never been
done before. a thing which leads to failure
in dozen cases and to brilliant success in
the lucky thirteenth. had never been better
inspired. for the staircase, otherwise a
rather heavy and not very admirable fea-
ture in the house, had been gloriously
transformed by this feathery and rustic
decoration. But poor Mr.. Hopkinson's ig-
norance of what wild flowers were, had
been capped by his ignorance of how wild
flowers grew, and he had begun to arrange
the poor dears in neat rows, as in riband
bed. Consequently he and his assistant
florists had, about twelve thirty that day,
to begin all over again, and under Lady
Thursos direct and mordant supervision
had first made a salad of these fragrant
hampers of flowers and grasses, and then
stuck them properly, that is to say, at ran
dom, into the trays of moist clay that lined
each side of the stairway, and would keep
them alive and bright-eyed till morning.