A SOCIAL SUCCESS.
PART I.
“I know it is horrid to swoop down upon you at this barbarously early hour, but I couldn’t help coming the minute I received your card. We get our mail at the breakfast table, and I fairly screamed with joy when I opened the envelope. ‘Jack!’ I said, ‘who do you think has come to New York to live?’
“‘The Picanninnies and the Joblillies and the Garyulies, and probably the grand Panjandrum himself,’ said my gentleman.
“You know what a tease he is. Oh, no, you don’t! for you never met him. But you will before long! ‘Better than all of them put together, with the little round button on top,’ said I. (You see I am used to his chaff!) ‘My very dearest school friend, of whom you have heard me talk ten thousand times—Susie Barnes, now Mrs. Cornell. She has been living five years in Brooklyn (and I’ve always declared I’d rather go to Canada than to Brooklyn) and here’s her card telling me that she has returned to civilization. Mrs. Arthur Hayward Cornell, No. — West Sixty-seventh St.’ At that he pricked up his ears.
“‘That’s the new cashier in the Pin and Needle Bank,’ says he. ‘Somebody was talking of him at the Club last night.’ And nothing would do but I must tell him all about you. In going over the story and thinking of the dear old times, my heart got so warm and full that I rushed off by the time he was out of the house.”
Mrs. John Hitt, a well-dressed, prettyish woman, whom the cold morning light showed to be also a trifle society-worn, embraced her hostess anew, and then held her off at arm’s length for inspection.
“You sweet old girl! what sort of life have you led that you have kept your roses, your dimples, and the sparkle in your eyes all these years? Do you know that you are absolutely bewitching?”
The lately recovered friend smiled, coloring as a woman of Mrs. Hitt’s world could not have done.