The composition of these addresses, and the reduction of them to their final form, was a work which, since time was limited, required much concentrated labor; but the labor was lightened by the extraordinary hospitality of friends, who made me feel that, so far as society goes, I had only exchanged one sort of London for another. In my sitting room at the Savoy Hotel, on arriving from Long Island, I found a number of notes inviting me to dinners, to concerts, and various other entertainments. The first of these was a luncheon at Mrs. John Jacob Astor's. Her house was one which might have been in Grosvenor Place; and, for matter of that, so might half the company. I found myself sitting by Mrs. Hwfa Williams. Not far off was her husband, an eminent figure in the racing world of England. There, too, I discovered Harry Higgins, whom I had known in his Oxford days, before his translation from Merton to Knightsbridge barracks; and opposite to me was Monsignor Vay di Vaya, an Austrian ornament of the Vatican, who wore a dazzling cross on a perfectly cut waistcoat, and who, when I last saw him, had been winding wool in the Highlands for Mrs. Bradley Martin. Mrs. Astor, if I may pay her a very inadequate compliment, merely by her delicate presence seemed to turn life into a picture on an old French fan. My first evening party was, if I remember rightly, a concert at the house of one of the Vanderbilt families. I had hardly entered the music room before my host, with extreme kindness, indicated a lady who was sitting next a vacant chair, and said, "Over there is someone you would like to know." He introduced me to this lady, who was Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish--one of the best-known and important figures in the social world of New York. I was subsequently often at her house. I have rarely been better entertained than I was by her conversation that night during the intervals of the musical program. This kindness in introducing a stranger to persons likely to be agreeable to him struck me as a distinguishing feature of the New York world generally. I experienced it often at the opera, where the occupants of the grand tier form practically a social club, as well as a mere musical gathering. On one occasion, when I was with Mr. and Mrs. Sloane in their box, Mr. Sloane took me round to the opposite side of the house to present me to a lady whose attractions he praised, and did not praise too highly. I asked him the name of another of singularly charming aspect. Her box was close to his. "Come," he said, "I will introduce you now." Here is one of those graces of social conduct which are, as I have observed already with reference to London, possible only in societies which are more or less carefully restricted.