About this time all the papers were giving considerable attention in the columns which they headed variously: "Social Doings," "Among the Four Hundred,"--a phrase just then coming into notoriety,--"The Society Calendar," etc., to Mrs. Pallinder's house-party. That lady herself, her establishment, her clothes, her diamonds had provided us with gossip, as I have endeavoured to show, for the past two years. But if we were inured to Mrs. Pallinder, Miss Muriel Ponsonby-Baxter was something new. Everyone entertained for her; it was a matter of pride with us to give our English girl-visitor an unapproachably "good time," to prove to her how much the best country in this best of all possible worlds America was for the young, well-born, well-mannered, good-looking, and happy--ourselves, in short. Not one of us had the slightest acquaintance with English society; but we were confident our own was immeasurably better. Twenty-five years ago, it must be remembered, there was a chillier feeling between the two countries; and, of course, our provincialism accented it. The eagle ramped upon his perch; the lion suffered a deal of tail-twisting; hands across the sea were not quite so fervent in their clasp then as now. Our demagogues flung about dark hints concerning the machinations of the "Cobden Club." American protectionists, American free-traders bellowed themselves purple in the face from the stump in defence of their several creeds, and strangely enough, found in England equally an awful example, and a beacon-light of progress! The last, for obvious reasons, was a very unpopular view; in those Arcadian days the main diversion of a certain class of our politicians was the ferocious baiting of perfidious Albion. The Oriental-war scares, the race-problems, the anti-trust, and anti-railroad agitations of to-day must cause these amiable jingoes--a name, by the way, which they never heard--to turn in their graves. Bless thee, Bottom, how art thou translated! In that year, the Pendleton Civil-Service Reform Bill was the most important measure before the two Houses; and "to the victors belong the spoils," was the cry most frequently raised against it. That admirable argument, at once so condensed and so forcible, what respectable person would dare to utter it to-day? Blaine was alive; Tilden was alive; Ben Butler was governor of Massachusetts, he of fragrant memory, house-cleaner of New Orleans, promulgator of Regulation 19--or was it 29? Iram indeed is gone with all his rose, and Ben and all the rest along with him; and we have ceased, at a woeful expense, to be provincial. We were not bothering our heads _then_, about tropical canals and the Philippines--oh, all-but-forgotten Golden Age!