fter Ezra Worthington's death that the glow of the rising Worthington
sun began to be seen in the Winthrop mosque. During those three years
Mrs. Worthington had bought and read four different sets of the best
hundred books, had consumed the Chautauque course, had prepared and
delivered for the Social Science Club, which she organized, five papers
ranging in subject from the home life of Rameses I., through a Survey of
the Forces Dominating Michael Angelo, to the Influence of Esoteric
Buddhism on Modern Political Tendencies. More than that, she had been
elected president of the City Federation clubs and being a delegate to
the National Federation from the State, was talked of for the State
Federation Presidency. When the State Federation met in our town, Mrs.
Worthington gave a reception for the delegates in the Worthington
Palace, a feature of which was a concert by a Kansas City organist on
the new pipe-organ which she had erected in the music-room of her house,
and despite the fact that the devotees of the Priscilla shrine said that
the crowd was distinctly mixed and not at all representative of our best
social grace and elegance, there is no question but that Mrs.
Worthington's reception made a strong impression upon the best local
society. The fact that, as Miss Larrabee said, "Priscilla Winthrop was
so nice about it," also may be regarded as ominous. But the women who
lent Mrs. Worthington the spoons and forks for the occasion were
delighted, and formed a phalanx about her, which made up in numbers what
it might have lacked in distinction. Yet while Mrs. Worthington was in
Europe the faithful routed the phalanx, and Mrs. Conklin returned from
her summer in Duxbury with half a carload of old furniture from Harrison
Sampson's shop and gave a talk to the priestesses of the inner temple on
"Heppelwhite in New England."

Miss Larrabee reported the affair for our paper, giving the small list
of guests and the long line of refreshments--which included
alligator-pear salad, right out of the Smart Set Cook Book. Moreover,
when Jefferson appeared in Topeka that fall, Priscilla Winthrop, who had
met him through some of her Duxbury friends in Boston, invited him to
run down for a luncheon with her and the members of the royal family who
surrounded her. It was the proud boast of the defenders of the Winthrop
faith in town that week, that though twenty-four people sat down to the
table, not only did all the men wear frock coats--