dible.

That humble young painters or singers should long to know personally the
great lights of their professions, and should strive to be accepted among
them is easily understood, since the aspirants can reap but benefit,
present and future, from such companionship. That a rising politician
should deem it all-important to be on friendly terms with the "bosses" is
not astonishing, for those magnates have it in their power to make or mar
his fortune. But in a _milieu_ as fluctuating as any social circle must
necessarily be, shading off on all sides and changing as constantly as
light on water, the end can never be considered as achieved or the goal
attained.

Neither does any particular result accompany success, more substantial
than the moral one which lies in self-congratulation. That, however, is
enough for a climber if she is bitten with the "ascending" madness. (I
say "she," because this form of ambition is more frequent among women,
although by no means unknown to the sterner sex.)

It amuses me vastly to sit in my corner and watch one of these _fin-de-
siecle_ diplomatists work out her little problem. She generally comes
plunging into our city from outside, hot for conquest, making
acquaintances right and left, indiscriminately; thus falling an easy prey
to the wolves that prowl around the edges of society, waiting for just
such lambs to devour. Her first entertainments are worth attending for
she has ingeniously contrived to get together all the people she should
have left out, and failed to attract the social lights and powers of the
moment. If she be a quick-witted lady, she soon sees the error of her
ways and begins a process of "weeding"--as difficult as it is unwise,
each rejected "weed" instantly becoming an enemy for life, not to speak
of the risk she, in her ignorance, runs of mistaking for "detrimentals"
the _fines fleurs_ of the worldly parterre. Ah! the way of the Climber
is hard; she now begins to see that her path is not strewn with flowers.

One tactful person of this kind, whose gradual "unfolding" was watched
with much amusement and wonder by her acquaintances, avoided all these
errors by going in early for a "dear friend." Having, after mature
reflection, chosen her guide among the most exclusive of the young
matrons, she proceeded quietly to pay her court _en regle_. Flattering
little notes, boxes of candy, and bunches of flowers were among the forms
her devotion took. As a natura