sume it to have been discussed
and completed, and will now dress ourselves for Miss Dunstable's
conversazione. But it must not be supposed that she was so poor in
genius as to call her party openly by a name borrowed for the nonce
from Mrs. Proudie. It was only among her specially intimate friends,
Mrs. Harold Smith and some few dozen others, that she indulged in
this little joke. There had been nothing in the least pretentious
about the card with which she summoned her friends to her house on
this occasion. She had merely signified in some ordinary way, that
she would be glad to see them as soon after nine o'clock on Thursday
evening, the ---- instant, as might be convenient. But all the world
understood that all the world was to be gathered together at Miss
Dunstable's house on the night in question--that an effort was to be
made to bring together people of all classes, gods and giants, saints
and sinners, those rabid through the strength of their morality,
such as our dear friend Lady Lufton, and those who were rabid in the
opposite direction, such as Lady Hartletop, the Duke of Omnium, and
Mr. Sowerby. An orthodox martyr had been caught from the East, and an
oily latter-day St. Paul, from the other side of the water--to the
horror and amazement of Archdeacon Grantly, who had come up all the
way from Plumstead to be present on the occasion. Mrs. Grantly also
had hankered to be there; but when she heard of the presence of the
latter-day St. Paul, she triumphed loudly over her husband, who had
made no offer to take her. That Lords Brock and De Terrier were to be
at the gathering was nothing. The pleasant king of the gods and the
courtly chief of the giants could shake hands with each other in
any house with the greatest pleasure; but men were to meet who, in
reference to each other, could shake nothing but their heads or
their fists. Supplehouse was to be there, and Harold Smith, who now
hated his enemy with a hatred surpassing that of women--or even
of politicians. The minor gods, it was thought, would congregate
together in one room, very bitter in their present state of
banishment; and the minor giants in another, terribly loud in their
triumph. That is the fault of the giants, who, otherwise, are not
bad fellows; they are unable to endure the weight of any temporary
success. When attempting Olympus--and this work of attempting is
doubtless their natural condition--they scratch and scramble,
diligently using both to