New Britain herald., 1919-02-12
Signing for New Worlds

And so, th4S IS story especially for this army of longing little maids and their families, who find their as- pirations all too trying, many a time, since it is about two real flesh-and- blood young girls to whom all doors of society opened with the magic keys of birth and ancient lineage, and who turned their backs upon their own world and set out to invade another and untried one and did it so suc- cessfully that one now is a recog- nized favorite on the working side of the footlights, while the other is celluloid stage.
 The family started so far back that only historians and genealogists and people like that know anything about it. By the time the year 1748 came along it was so well established and knew so many of the first families" that it was one of those households invited to the very first Assem- bly,, that historic ball given on the water front in the city beloved by William Penn, in the days when dances were given by candle light and began as the candles were set glim- mering and ended just about the time the present generation starts for a ball.
 All of which establishes the family's prestige and ancient lineage without the peradventure of a doubt and shows even to the uninitiated why Constance and Frederick Binney could join all the dances organized for the younger set; could call the other per sons by their first names at a the dansant; could go to the Assembly balls in Philadelphia, the White House functions in Washington and the smartest dances in New York and Bos- ton by the time they had successfully passed their debutante teas. As one will clearly see, by the time the family travelled all the way down through the years that have elapsed since the first Assembly was held there had been so many intermar- riages with equally important persons in other cities that these two little maids had uncles and aunts and cousins i'll all the important social centers of the east
 The urge of self-eXpression was felt by the Binney girls mother when she was a tiny girl some thirty years ago, and when she lived in staid old Philadelphia, where convention rules with an iron rod and where to do what ones neighbors and own social set does not do stamps one as being well, queer, to say the least.
 The Mothers Romance
 The Binney girls mother was Ger trude Miles. Basil Miles, who is in charge of Russian affairs in Washing ton and who once upon time was secretary to the American ambassador at Petrograd, is one of the same family. MT. and Mrs. Miles repressed the little Gertrude's longing to become a great dancer and firmly and irrev ocably uprooted all the to them un- conventional urgings of their daugh- ter's nature. Slowly they made her over into the customary young girl interested in her debutante reception and her first seasons dances and din ners. Eventually she found her Prince Charming, riding out West, which happened to be New York, on his milk white charger and with his trappings of gold all polished up and shining into her eyes so brightly that they blinded her forever 10 the Realm of Might Have Been
 After the usual time of collecting Sainty bits of lace and silk from Flu z-ope and this country and the assem- cling of ali the high and mighty cousins from all corners of the land the sweet young girl enulated the ex- ample of the titled lady in the poem, and
 "AcYoss the hills and jar naCdy,
 Beuo1ld their 7ttmCSt purple rim,
 And deep into the dyi7a0 day
 The happy princess tolIoo0eG him.
 For young Harold Binney, Gertrude MiIes's Prince Charming, was rising young lawyer in New York, where he was practicing diligently in spite of the fact that he had enough of this worlds goods to supply his wife with all for which her heart longed.