It took Edith and Ruth two solid weeks of discussion and consultation to complete the invitation list. You see Edith was careful to give the party early in the fall before the summer colony had gone back home to its winter quarters. After the reception itself there was to be a small dance, and the elect were invited to remain. It was a source of satisfaction to Edith that only a dozen native Hilton men were invited to the dance, and but eight girls. Of course such partiality and ruthless slight and scorn of the people of her own native city caused a good deal of feeling in Hilton, but I observed that most every one who was invited to the reception came, in spite of the fact that they had been omitted from the dance to follow. Every living woman in Hilton was anxious, I suppose, to prove by her presence that she had the distinction of a portion of the engraved invitation at least. I remember one name was under discussion for a week--a Mrs. Hugh Fullerton who was simply crazy "to get into things," Edith said--an officious, showy little bride from the West, she explained, who had married that young Yale graduate, Hugh Fullerton. Hugh Fullerton had been invited everywhere before he was married. He had been in Hilton only three years, but he had taken well. New young men usually do take well in Hilton. It's the women and the girls who have to climb and scramble. Mr. Fullerton was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was learning the boiler business in the Hilton Boiler Works. He was a fine, tall, athletic, bronzed sort of fellow; Edith used to invite him to The Homestead very often; he'd ridden every one of her hunters; he was supposed to be one of her favourites. Then he married, and Edith's invitations came to an abrupt end. I had never seen Mrs. Fullerton, but I felt sorry for her. "She has been married only since June," I said to Edith; "why not invite the poor thing to the dance? What harm would it do? She may be a little homesick way on here in the East, and it might cheer her up a lot to have a little distinction if she's so awfully anxious for it." "Bobbie, dear child, I'm not running an institution for homesick girls," replied Edith. "I know what I'm about. I rather liked the girl at first, I confess. She's got a lot of style, but she simply isn't being taken up--that's all. The Ogdens live in St. Louis in the winter and this Mrs. Fullerton lived there before she was married. The Ogdens know everybody in St. Louis of any importance, but they never even heard of Mrs. Fullerton. I'm not going to try to float a girl in society, whom I know nothing about. You may be sure of _that_." "I should think your position would be secure enough after a while, for you to show a little independence," I murmured. "Independence! Why, child, I'm inviting her to the reception, as it is. Anyhow what can _you_ know about it? I'll settle the invitations, dearie." That was an example of the manner with which my ideas were usually treated.