carve out their own social way saw this
opportunity at once and have developed it in a quite remarkable
fashion.

The arbiters of social place are not handing out any of the big prizes
to the women who are just agreeable in a commonplace style. Do the
striking thing in London, and do it well, is the rule for success at
this time, and the energetic, quickly perceiving American woman loses
not a week nor a day after her arrival in proving to us that she is a
definite person indeed.

London society is made up of as many as ten different sets, all
independent and powerful, each one in its own way, and the skill of
the woman from New York or Chicago is displayed by her promptness in
deciding on just the set into which she prefers to enter.

Mrs. Bradley Martin, Lady Deerhurst, Lady Bagot; Cora, Lady
Strafford--now known by her new married title as Mrs. Kennard--Lady
Newborough and a score of others one could mention, are to be included
among the Americans who have devoted their talents entirely to the
conquering of the smartest of smart sets. Most of these have married
titles, it is true, but titles are not essential, after all, where
natural social gifts are possessed; Mrs. Sam Chauncey, for instance,
is a case in point.

Mrs. Chauncey is an American widow and a beauty, with a most agreeable
manner and lively intelligence; she presides in a bewitching bijou of
a little house in Hertford Street, and drives one of the smartest
miniature victorias that appear in the park. But London's first and
most striking impression concerning this delightful acquisition from
the States was derived from her wonderful and lovely gowns--her French
frocks are, for taste and becomingness, quite paralyzing to even a
breath of criticism, and from the first moment of her debut in London
they excited only the most whole-souled enthusiasm in the hearts of
all beholders of both sexes.

To say that she is rather particularly famous as the best dressed
woman in our great city is, perhaps, to make a pretty strong
assertion, in the face of very serious competition offered by women
notable for the perfection of their wardrobe, but this claim really
stands on good grounds. Even among her compatriots, she seems always
astonishingly well gowned, and really, if we are going to honestly
give honor where honor is due, we must put natural pride and sentiment
aside and agree that the presence of the American woman in London has
had a marked and salutary in