to be done by rich women--that of giving a
higher tone to society. I knew a delicate woman who went to live in a
large and rapidly growing Western city. On account of her wealth and
connections all the leading people in the place called upon her at once,
and her house became a centre of society. She used her good taste in
making her home really beautiful--not showy or fashionable. Then she
opened it freely to congenial friends. Some of her visitors were society
people, but many were not. There were thoughtful teachers, clever young
collegians who had gone West to seek a fortune and had found drudgery
awaiting them instead, half a dozen unknown musicians and artists, and a
few educated Germans and Swedes whom fate had stranded far from home.
These people were welcome every day and at all hours. For this lady, who
had intellectual tastes, had been forced by the weakness of her eyes to
get her education from people rather than from books. So a perpetual
_salon_ was a pleasant thing to her. All who were invited to her home
had some moral or intellectual gift which made their company desirable,
not only to the hostess but to the other guests. The rich and poor met
together there, but not the cultivated rich and the uncultivated poor,
or the uncultivated rich and the cultivated poor. Consequently, the
conversation was real. A young professor would come in with the
"Atlantic Monthly," begging leave to read an article to her, and the
reading would begin without any superfluous remarks about the weather.
Others would come in, but the reading would go on and the discussion it
suggested. An artist would bring a new picture, and the conversation
would turn in a new direction. A musician would sing an air, and a quiet
German would be led to speak of his life in the Fatherland.

But with all her leisure, my friend found it a burden to keep up the
round of merely formal calls required of her. She did not wish to hurt
the feelings of any one, so she persevered for a while. She set apart
one day in a fortnight for a reception day. (You may be sure none of her
bright and interesting friends came then.) And once a fortnight she took
her card-case in hand and drove rapidly about the city, returning calls.
But she seldom called formally on anybody who had once been asked to her
_salon_. These were the people, she said to herself, who could
_understand_.

Her delicate health excused her from giving parties. Coffee and cakes
were always at