hand for refreshment, and any caller was welcomed to
lunch or dinner if he happened to be at the house when the bell rang.
The dinners were always good, but no change was made for a visitor. She
always refused to go to parties or receptions, which she thought
insufferable except when there was dancing. But she could not escape the
burden of party calls. The difficulty in carrying out her plans was that
there was no definite line between her sheep and goats. There were some
with whom she had to be both formal and informal, and she knew it could
not be right for her to drop totally everybody whom she did not fancy.
Many other women had felt the same burdens too heavy to be borne, but
had seen no escape. She suggested a club-house for ladies in some
central part of the city which they all often passed in shopping. It
should be a comfortable resting-place, with restaurant, reading-room,
etc. It should always be open, but one afternoon in the week should be
considered a special reception day. That would give ladies a chance to
see each other with very little trouble. When a stranger came into town,
if it was thought she would be a congenial acquaintance, two members
were to call upon her and invite her to the club, and see that she was
properly introduced. Then she was considered one of their number, and
was free from the bondage of calls ever after. There were many other
regulations emancipating the members from the tyranny of unsocial
society. Of course many ladies objected to all this. Their idea of
society was the conventional one, and they continued to live on that
basis. Most of them were welcomed at the club, but its members did not
call upon them, or go to their parties, or give them parties in return,
always excepting parties with an object like music and dancing. Parties
had given place to informal gatherings like my friend's _salon_, where
something real could be said.

Now in an old city such a change could not be brought about so quickly.
It could only be made by a large number of leaders of society joining to
make it. No stranger nor young person could do much except to make her
own part of any conversation as worthy as possible. But the mothers can
lead the daughters, and the daughters, starting from a higher point, can
go on in the same way.

These are some of the many unproductive occupations in which rich women
may use their time well, without finding it necessary to compete with
their poorer sisters in ea