the foundation of all commercial rectitude, is quoted as saying of the still young man whom the accident of inheritance placed in a position of despotic power over millions of money and millions of modest hopes: "He is an excellent type of the second generation." It is an epigram which should be a warning, as the cause is a menace to American business methods. For did not Emerson say, studying American ways more than a generation ago when American life was simpler: "It takes three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves." But in that warning there is hope, for in the scattering of wealth lies America's chance of salvation. Plain living and high thinking once characterised what was best in American life, and the men and women whose thoughts were high and whose living plain were mostly from that simple ice-water-drinking class that has produced much of the nobility and patriotism of America. That ice-water has helped to encourage dyspepsia, granted; but even a great virtue can have its defects.

How different was the America of our childhood! One remembers the time when, if the honoured guest was not invited to quench his thirst with ice-water at the hospitable board, he was, as a great treat, furnished with cider. Claret was the drink of those adventurous souls who had traditions and had been abroad. There was no champagne standard—champagne only graced the table on solemn, state occasions. But in these rapid days the hospitable people who would once have offered you a serious glass of claret now give you champagne. And because Smith, who can afford it, gives you good champagne, Jones, who cannot afford it, gives you bad champagne. But the bad and the good champagne are both tied up in white cloths, as if they had the toothache, so how awfully lucky it is that when the label is fifth-rate, Mrs. Jones, trusting in the shrouded shape, can offer bad champagne with ignorant satisfaction.

It is interesting to study the evolution of Jones. There was Jones's father; he didn't pretend. He lived in a modest house and kept one servant and had a fat bank account. Old Mrs. Jones, a charming woman with the manners of a duchess, helped in the housework. Old Jones dined all the days of his life at one o'clock, and had a "meat-tea" at six. At ten every night he ate an apple, and then he went to bed at ten-thirty. He left a handsome fortune to his children, who shared alike, which made Jones, Jr., only comfortably off. Now young Jones and his wife began by following in the footsteps of their parents, but Jones made money in business, and the result was that Mrs. Jones had aspirations. Aspirations are always a feminine attribute. So Jones bought a fashionable house, and instead of one servant Mrs. Jones keeps four; instead of a joint and pie, American pie, for which his simple appetite longs, Jones has a six-course dinner at eight which gives him dyspepsia. There is not the ghost of a doubt that Mrs. Jones is too afraid of the servants to have a plain dinner. And it is also quite certain that she goes to a fashionable church for a social impetus rather than divine uplifting, and that she sends her only child, Petra Jones, to a fashionable kindergarten so that the unfortunate child, who is at an age when she ought to be making mud pies, shall be early launched into fashionable friendships. Indeed, one day, in a burst of confidence, Mrs. Jones described how Petra had been snubbed. It seems that the Jones's child met another small school-fellow in the park in custody of the last thing in French nurses. Being only six and still unsophisticated in the ways of fashion, she rushed up to the young patrician and suggested their playing together.

"No, I can't play with you," the young patrician sniffed—"for my ma don't call on your ma."

Why is it that the pin-pricks of life are so much harder to bear than its tragedies? Mrs. Jones mourned over this snub to the pride of Jones, but she has no leisure to observe that Jones, her husband, is meanwhile growing old and hollow-eyed with care and business worries and the expense of aspiring. O champagne standard! O foolish Mrs. Jones!

As long as we can be snubbed and suffer what is the use of telling us that we are born free and equal? The only liberty we have is to breathe, and our equality consists in that, plebeian and patrician alike, we are permitted to take in as much air as our infant lungs can accommodate. After that our equality ceases.

When Mrs. Jones goes to the expense of giving a dinner party, does she only invite her nearest and dearest, who are acquainted with the extent of Jones's purse? Not a bit of it. She invites most of her enemies and some strangers. There really should be a limit to the attention one bestows on the stranger within his gates.

There was dear old Mrs. Carter Patterson in the days of my youth. She was a funny old woman with a nose like a beak, a rusty Chantilly lace veil, and a black front. She stopped my mother in the street and explained that she was in a tearing hurry as she was about to call on Mrs. Mangles.

"Why, I thought," and my simple mother hesitated, "I thought you said you hated her."

"So I do, my dear, so I do, but I always make a point of calling on my enemies, it's no use calling on one's friends."

Who has not studied the increasing difficulty of that surgical operation called the launching of a young girl into modern society. Every year it grows more and more difficult—society seems to form a kind of trust to keep out the young girl, at least to judge from the extreme difficulty of getting her in; and after she is in, the bitterness of it, and vexation of spirit, only the young girl knows. The operation is different in different countries, though one has heard of the agonies endured in England during the process. In America the ceremony is as expensive as a wedding. Because one girl has had a huge coming-out reception, that shakes her pa's cheque book to its centre, why the other girl must have a still bigger one.

I have been a witness to the coming out of Maria's only child Nancy. The education of Nancy was not so much to teach her anything, as to give her the best opportunity of making fashionable acquaintances. It was my privilege to study her mother's heroic efforts to get Nancy into a fashionable dancing-school, the entrance to which gave the fortunate one that supreme distinction which nothing else could. Twice "mother" failed, and she wept in my presence in sheer weariness of soul, but the third time Nancy got in—not triumphantly, but she slipped in by some oversight of a fashionable matron whose duty it was to keep out ineligible little children, and "mother" was happy, though the little "400" boys in the round dances did neglect Nancy, who looked shyly and wistfully about, a small melancholy wall-flower, with her eyes swimming with tears, as the little boys wisely footed it with all the most eligible of the "400" little girls. It is very instructive to see how early the sense of worthy worldly wisdom develops itself!

But Nancy had passed through all these stages of social martyrdom, and had comfortably hardened. Talk of the Spartan boy with the fox nibbling at his vitals! There are worse things than having a fox nibble at your vitals—Nancy knew.

When I met "mother" the morning of the coming-out of Nancy, she was nearly in a condition of nervous prostration. The house was in the clutches of florists and caterers, and father had fled to his office with the strict injunction not to appear until late in the afternoon. The awful problems were two: Would Nancy get as many bouquets as a rival "bud"—the technical name for a debutante—who had reached the acme of social distinction with two hundred and thirty-five, and would enough people come to make a show?

"I shall die if she doesn't get as many bouquets as that Bell girl," "mother" cried in an ecstasy of nervous anguish, "but she has only got two hundred and ten."

"It's as bad as getting married," I cried sympathetically.

"Quite," and Maria groaned; "and without any real result."