esn't have anything to do with
us in particular. And we are just like you are. You open your Sunday
papers and read reams about the plumbing and pajamas and pet dogs and
love affairs of your first families, and I guess nothing that Sally
Singer or Sarah Payley ever did got past the scornful but lynx-eyed
Homeburgers. When Sarah was getting letters on expensive stationery from
Kansas City, the whole town discussed the probable character of a man
who would put blue sealing wax on his envelopes, and when Sally made her
pa put an addition on the Singer home, we knew what color she was going
to do her boudoir in three months in advance. But we are prouder than
your people. You hire down-trodden reporters to go and abase themselves
to get the information, while we wouldn't lower ourselves enough to ask
even by proxy. We just let the sewing women and hired girls tell us.

Being an exclusive set in a small town is a whole lot harder than it is
in New York, and I've always admired our youngsters for the way they've
carried it off. Of course, four people can't form a club or give parties
or support an exclusive restaurant; they can't even be exclusive all by
themselves. They have had to mingle with us, but they are always
carefully insulated. They joined our Country Club, but they did it with
their fingers crossed, so to speak. They always come out together and
protect each other from our rude advances as much as possible. They
import college friends whenever they can, and they always have a few
bush leaguers, or utility players, to work in on such occasions. Henry
Snyder used to say he could tell when there was need of the peasantry at
the Singer house by the way Sally Singer would suddenly descend from the
third cross-road beyond Mars to the street in front of the post-office
and ask him with an accurately hospitable smile if he couldn't bring
his sister up to the house that evening to meet a few guests. And once a
year all four turn in and give a real dress rehearsal of up-to-date
social science, to which Homeburg is liberally invited and at which
unknown and unsuspected things are served for refreshments and a new and
deadly variation of bridge or dancing or punch or receiving lines or
conversational technique is put on for our inspection and bewilderment.

We have a show at our opera-house now and then, and we always go to
these affairs largely to see our Smart Set perform. It always
comes--even East Lynne is better that Wes