But to go back to my vanity--I see that Jessie, Rachel and Cyrus were the real cause of my success. Jessie and Rachel alone could make anybody, who wasn't positively awful, a go. Then Nadeshda, bent on marrying Cyrus at first, was a big help--and every mama with a marriageable daughter was hot on Cyrus' trail. So it's easy to make an infallible recipe for getting into society: First, wealth; second, willingness to act on competent advice; third, get a "secretary" who knows society and has intimate friends in its most exclusive set, and who also knows how to arrange entertainments; fourth, have a marriageable son, if possible, or, failing that, a daughter, or, failing that, a near relative who will be well dowered; fifth, organize the campaign thoroughly and pay particular attention to getting yourself liked by the few people who really count. You can't bribe them; you can't drive them; you must _amuse_ them. The more leisure people have the harder it is to amuse them. Looking back, I can see that "ma" Burke passed her social crisis when, on January 5, Mrs. Gaether asked her to assist at her reception. For Mrs. Gaether was the first social power who took "ma" up simply and solely because she liked her. We have spent a great deal of money, but not half what the Tevises have spent. But our money counted because it was incidental. Mere money won't carry any one very far in Washington--I don't believe it will anywhere, except, perhaps, in New York. I ought to have kept some sort of record of what we've done from day to day--I mean, more detailed than my books. However, I'll just put in our last full day before Lent, as far as I can recall it. No, I'll only write out what Mrs. Burke alone did that day: 7:30 to 10. She and I, in her room, went over the arrangements for the ball we were giving in the evening. 10 to 12:30. She went to see half a dozen people about various social matters, besides doing a great deal of shopping. 12:30 to 1:45. More worrying consultation with me, then dressing for luncheon. 1:45 to 3:45. A long and tiresome luncheon at one of the embassies. 3:45 to 6:30. More than twenty calls and teas--a succession of exhausting rushes and struggles. 6:30 to 7:15. In the drawing-room here, with a lot of people coming and going. 7:15 to 8. Dressing for dinner--a frightful rush. 8 to 8:30. Receiving the dinner guests. 8:30 to 10:45. The dinner. 10:45 to midnight. Receiving the guests for the dance--on her feet all the time. Midnight to 6 in the morning. Sitting, but incessantly busy. 6 to 9. In bed. 9. A new and crowded day. This has been a short season, but I don't think it was the shortness, crowding much into a few days, that made the pressure so great. It's simply that year by year Washington becomes socially worse and worse. As I looked round at that last ball of ours I pitied the people who were nerving themselves up to trying to enjoy themselves.