the Lathams, which, together with Mrs. Jenks-Smith's random remarks, have
inevitably set me to thinking.

I had hoped to form a pleasant friendship with Sylvia, for though I have
only met her two or three times, I feel as if I really knew her; but
there will be little chance now, as they go on to Newport the first of
July, and the continual procession of house parties, for golf, tennis,
etc., at the Bluffs, even though they are called informal, necessarily
stand in the way of intimate neighbourly relations between us. Monty Bell
has been dividing his week ends between the Ponsonby, Vanderveer, and
Jenks-Smith households, yet he always is in the foreground when I have
been to see Sylvia, even though I have tried to slip in between times in
the morning.

I do not like this Monty Bell; he seems to be merely an eater of dinners
and a cajoler of dames, such superficial chivalry of speech as he
exhibits being only one of the many expedients that gain him the title of
"socially indispensable" that the Whirlpoolers accord him.

Personally anything but attractive, he seems able to organize and control
others in a most singular way. Perhaps it is because he has a genius for
taking pains and planning successful entertainments for his friends, even
to the minutest detail, and giving them the subtle distinction of both
originality and finish, without troubling their givers to think for
themselves. Miss Lavinia-says that he has the entree of the two or three
very exclusive New York houses that have never yet opened their doors to
Mrs. Latham and several more aspiring Whirlpoolers, Mrs. Jenks-Smith
having penetrated the sacred precincts, only by right of having been
presented at the English Court in the last reign through the influence of
her stepdaughter, who married a poverty-stricken title.

"I don't know what it all amounts to," said the outspoken Lady of
the Bluffs on her return, "except that I'm in it now with both feet,
which is little enough pay for the trouble I took and the money
Jenks-Smith put out.

"Our son-in-law? No, he's not exactly English, he's Irish, blood of the
old kings, they say; but all the good it does him is, that he can wear
his hat with a feather in it, or else his shoes, I can never remember
which, in the presence of royalty, when if it wasn't for good American
money he'd have neither one or the other.

"Money? Oh yes, that's all they want of us over there; we've no cause to
stick up our noses and t