sive,
and moral; but the naturalness of Chicago cannot endure forever; already
Puritan simplicity has fought the first skirmish with bare-necked folly
and been worsted. French dresses and English drags have come to stay;
insincerity and disbelief will follow.

The best society is hard to define,--especially in America,--but by some
indescribable process people are shaken up, and so sifted into cliques
and circles that they become mysteriously classified and labeled without
the scrutinizing care of a satin-coated Lord Chamberlain. When the
inhabitants of Chicago were passed through the social sieve, the finest
particles formed a little heap labeled "The Patricians." This was the
set that gave the most exclusive subscription dances, and, though there
were other organizations which might feel strong enough to compete with
this select assembly, it was noticed that the name of no Patrician was
ever found upon another list, and no outsider ever declined to become a
Patrician subscriber. There is a classic story which says that when,
after their victory at Salamis, the generals of the various Greek states
voted the prizes for distinguished merit, each assigned the first place
of excellence to himself, but they all concurred in giving their second
votes to Themistocles. Were the Chicagoans called upon to vote for the
most exclusive organization of their city, each would probably cast his
first vote for the one of which he is a member, but the second votes
would all be given to the "Patricians." It was an ancient organization,
dating from before the fire, and its membership list had been sacredly
guarded ever since. Simple and informal at first, it had gradually
assumed pretentious proportions, until it had passed from a North Side
hall, cold suppers, lemonade and nine o'clock, to the Hotel Mazarin,
terrapin, _brut_ champagne, and eleven o'clock. In the early days there
had been three fiddlers and a man to call off, but now there was an
orchestra, a Hungarian band and a cotillon: "_O tempora, O mores!_"
"_Imitatores, servum pecus._"

Marion Sanderson was a patroness of the "Patricians," and to her efforts
the innovations were, in a great measure, due. They had been coldly
received at first, and when the changes culminated in champagne, some of
the stricter members withdrew their names and refused permission to
their daughters to attend, but the foundations of the Patricians had
been too firmly laid to be shattered even by such