"To begin with, don't encourage your associates to talk about the 'butterflies of fashion,' and that sort of thing. There are no butterflies in this town, except young girls under twenty, and you surely won't quarrel with _them_. Yes, we are all workers; what could Idleness herself do with her time in such a place as this? You've got to work in self-defence. Do you see that woman up aloft there?" "Well?" "She's the president and responsible manager of an orphan asylum. That one over across on the other side is an officer of the Civil Federation. Do you believe in that?" "Devoutly." "The woman just ahead of us--the purple velvet one--is a member of the Board of Education; she helps to place teachers and to audit coal bills. Why, even I myself have got a good many more things to look after than you could easily shake a stick at!" "And the one you this instant bowed to?" "You mean the one who bowed to me." For Mrs. Rhodes had leaned completely out of her box, and had then looked both right and left to observe whether her neighbors had done full justice to the episode. "Oh, she's a good little woman who is--climbing. "The fact is," Mrs. Bates proceeded, "that there are not a dozen real grown-up butterflies in town. We're coming to one now." They were skirting one range of the lower boxes. "It's Mrs. Ingles; you must meet her." "Some other time, please," implored Brower, as Mrs. Bates nodded to a sumptuous young creature not ten feet away. "Very well." Mrs. Bates shrugged her shoulders "Yes," she proceeded, presently, "Cecilia Ingles and her immediate set are about the only real butterflies we have. However, I'm going to take her in hand pretty soon and make a good, earnest woman of her." "There is work for them all," said Brower. "But don't let's be too serious just now," rejoined Mrs. Bates in friendly caution. "Who was that young man you had with you last night?" somebody demanded of her next day. "Mr. Brower." "Who is Mr. Brower, may I ask?" "A friend of Jane Marshall's." This (save that he had a trusty face) was all that she knew of Theodore Brower; but she thought it enough. "And who is Jane Marshall?" Mrs. Bates gave her questioner one look. "Really, you surprise me," she observed, and said no word more. Within a week Jane was known throughout the inquirer's whole set. Truesdale presently passed Mrs. Bates with a girl on his arm. "I wonder if that's another one of the tea-pourers?" she asked herself. It was. Truesdale was escorting Gladys--Gladys McKenna, as her complete name had finally come to him. He had laughed on first hearing it. "There's a _chaud-froid_ for you, sure enough!" Gladys wore a flame-colored gown, and her eyes, curiously fringed with black above and beneath, had an _outré_ and dishevelled appearance that lingered in the memory as wax-works do. She kept a strong clutch on his arm, and galloped alongside him with a persistent _camaraderie_ which conveyed no hint of cessation.