The customs are so quaint! She introduced us to each guest (not the
guests to us!) and they each repeated our names after her like this:
"Lady Chevenix and Lady Valmond, I want to present you to Mrs. Colonel
Prodgers." Then Mrs. Colonel Prodgers repeated, "Lady Chevenix, Lady
Valmond," and so on all down the line, until our poor names rang in our
heads; and Tom and the Senator and the Vicomte just the same. The
company were about seven women besides our hostess, and only three
young, the others verging on forty; and all the men were husbands, whom
the wives spoke of as "Mr." So and So when they mentioned them--just as
the townspeople do when they come out to the Conservative meetings or
bazaars at home; and the husbands did the same. But they do this in New
York even, unless in the very highest set; no man is spoken of by his
wife as "Bob" or "Charlie" or "my husband;" always "Mr." So and So.
Is it not odd, Mamma, that they who are so wonderfully quick and
adaptive should not have noticed that this is a purely middle class
peculiarity? Mr. Purdy had just time to tell us he had paid $40,000 for
a large Dutch picture hanging against the Gothic stone of one panel of
the wall, and $50,000 for a Gainsborough on the next (yes, Mamma, a
beautiful powdered lady in a white robe was smiling down with whimsical
sorrow upon us).
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