Getting into Society.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 31, 5 January 1884, Page 4

Getting into Society.

Laumola, who was as vain as he was vulgar, flattered by the marked attention which his three listeners — for Lysper had joined the other two — seemed inclined to accord to a recital of his great social achievements, was probably more expansive than he would have been under other circumstances—certainly much more so than if Madame had been present. " Why, you see, my little woman is ambitious, and clever as she is— though I say it that shouldn't— beautiful. " Albert," she said to me one day, " how is it you never bring any peers or noblemen to see me ?" That was just after I had completed my contracts for the Submarine Telephonic Company, which brought me in pretty near half-a-million. " I was looking through the names of the directors of some of the boards you are on," she said. "There's the Earl of Creedmore, and Lord Pytchley, and Sir George Dashington." " I only know them officially," I said, "I couldn't venture to ask them to come ; and they wouldn't come if I did." 44 Come out and drive with me in the park to-morrow, and we'll look out for some of them," says she. The first man we saw riding next day was j Dashington ; and when he nodded to me, jhe looked pretty hard at her ; and next board meeting, she came to call at the company's offices in the brougham, and sent me up a note to say she was waiting. It had been arranged before that I wa« accidentally to come down with Dashington ; and when he saw her pretty face looking out, and smiling and nodding to me, "Introduce me to your wife," he whispers ; so I introduced him, and went back to the board-room to sign Rome papers I had forgotten, and left him talking to Madame through the carriage window. And when I came back "Juet think, Albert," she said, " Sir George has promised to dino with us tonight, if we are quite alone, and will let him go to the House immediately after dinner." " And did Dashington go to the House immediately after dinner ?" asked Lysper, with an air of assumed innocence. " I don't know, for I had to meet a man at ! the club early in the evening, and left him with my wife ; but that little dinner was the beginning of our good fortune. Dashington would dine with us two or three times a week ; and there was nothing he would not do for Madame, and he took such a fancy to her— so much deep sympathy between them, and all that sort of thing, you know. But I was not going to have scandals set on foot when I knew there was no ground for them, so I insisted he must bring Lady Adela to call ; and in order to make it still more proper, Lady Adela and Madame were always driving out together. Then we began to give little dinner parties, and Dashington asked our Duchess here to invite us to her parties ; and avo worked the press and the photographers. First, there were mysterious paragraphs in the social weeklies about the ntew beauty— we always had some writers at dinner— and I got my life written— how I look at home, and all that sort of thing." " Yes, I remember, said Basinghall ; that was the first time I ever heard of you. Well, what did you do next ?" 44 Why, we spared no expense to get proJJ fessional musicians, and had only a select eight or ten for them to play to ; and Dashington gave dinners specially arranged for us — poor aristocrats with pretty wives. I put the noblemen into good things, and they brought their pretty wives to dine with us out of gratitude ; and the men of fashion who happened to be in love with the pretty wives were only too glad to be asked."— A Uioro Peto. By Laurence Oh-

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