THE TWILIGHT HOUR SOCIETY.
“HELÉNA, we must send out the invitations this very afternoon for the new literary society. It must be done with great care, too. I wish this to be the most select club of the West.”
The speaker was Mrs. Helen Brunswick, who had just returned from Europe. She was a lady of considerable culture and taste, and, what was not an inconvenient addition, of wealth. Her husband, a good business man, had died—perhaps opportunely; for, though Mrs. Brunswick was polite to him, she told her bosom friends that “he was not poetical,” and, therefore, not a very congenial spirit. His wife was a teacher when he married her, poor, but of very good family, and his money was undoubtedly the chief attraction.
She had one child, whose name, for the sake of elegance, she always called Heléna rather than Helen, and of whom she was very fond; but her one absorbing plan was to make her home a literary centre. She bought, on her return from Europe, an old-fashioned house,—a new one would have seemed vulgar to her æsthetic taste,—and furnished it as nearly as possible like the houses of some celebrated persons which she had seen abroad. She revelled in old tapestries, and bronzes which looked as though they were made in the bronze age.
Heléna sat down, note-book in hand, to make out a list of those who were to be honored members of the new association.
“Shall we invite Fanny Green, mamma?”
“Oh, no, dear! She is only a local poet, getting a few articles into the newspapers here and there. This society will not be established to help struggling newspaper writers or embryo artists. These will make their way somehow if they have talent, but the elegant ladies of Lakeville will not care to associate with such crude aspirants. We must take those from the very highest walks of life, those who enjoy art especially, and can prepare an essay on sculpture or Egyptian lore. The young artists and novelists are usually poor and hard workers, so they would have no time to look up these subjects, which require great research and the leisure that only a lady of wealth has.”
“But, mamma, it would so help the rising artists if their pictures could be brought before the society. They would be purchased, probably, for the elegant homes.”
“Oh, no! Most elegant ladies want a picture painted by a famous artist, so that when they speak of the work to a friend the talent will be seen at once.”