I had seen the thing before in other papers, in Chicago, in Boston, in Washington, in Atlanta, and in the provincial habit that falls to a man who thinks of life from the view-point of a big city, I had associated the line with something very different from any conditions that seemed likely to be present here. I looked out of the station window at the little white church, at the chromatic town hall, at the general merchandise store, at a neat girl with a tan cape who was coming down the main street,--and turned with curiosity to the society column. It was just the same as any other. It had all the adjectives of New York, or Richmond, or St. Louis, and if Voltaire had been reading it he might have hesitated to say that the adjective is the enemy of the noun. Evidently, too, the same things were going on that were going on elsewhere in society. It appeared especially that Miss Effie So-and-So had just “come out,” and that the event was signalized on Monday evening by a dance which was described at length as to the spacious drawing-rooms, the floral devices, the orchestra behind the fringe of palms, the cotillion, the favors, the elegant gown of Miss So-and-So’s mother, the gowns and ornaments of the other feminine guests, in detail, with a cordial closing word for the refreshments, which had been served at eleven o’clock. On Tuesday night there had been a birthday dance at the Sheriff’s, at which “society was largely represented”; at a pink tea on Wednesday afternoon there had been some novel decorations at small tables; and on Thursday evening the young ladies of the Polaris Club had gone over to Sudley’s with Mrs. So-and-So as chaperon. There was more as to a festival in preparation by the ladies of the First Church, as to a euchre party for the following Thursday, and as to a little surprise which it was whispered that “some society men” were arranging for the close of the season.