Mrs. Wilson was elated over the opportunity to mingle the thoughtful people of the country--some of whom, as seen at annual meetings of the society elsewhere, appeared to her to have cultivated intellectual aptness at the expense of the graces of life--and Benham's fashionable coterie. She reasoned that the experience would be stimulating for both, and with her secretary at her elbow she was absorbed in planning various features to give distinction to the event. Her hospitality, from one point of view, would not be the first of its kind in the annals of the society, for at each of the last two meetings--the one in Chicago, the other in St. Louis--there had been an attempt to entertain the members more lavishly than hitherto. So in a sense she felt herself on her mettle to set before her visitors the best which Benham afforded, and so effectively as to eclipse the past and at the same time bring a little nearer that appropriate blending between beauty and wisdom to which she looked forward as an ultimate social aim. She had been of many minds as to what form her entertainment should take, and had finally settled on this programme: Dinner was to be served at her house to the seventy-five visiting and resident members and a sprinkling of Benham's most socially gifted spirits, at little tables holding six or eight. A reception was to follow, to which the rest of her acquaintance was invited to meet the investigators of social problems. At this there was to be a vaudeville performance by artists from New York, after which, before supper, six of Benham's prettiest and most fashionable girls were to pass around, as keepsakes for the visitors, silver ornaments reminiscent of Benham in their shape or design. Mrs. Wilson was not wholly satisfied with this programme; she was conscious that it lacked complete novelty and was not æsthetically so convincing as some of her previous efforts; but considering the numbers to be fed--and she was determined that these thoughtful pilgrims should taste delicious food faultlessly served for once in their lives--she could think of no more subtle form of hospitality which would give them the opportunity to realize the artistic significance of her establishment.