V

A Symphony in Pink
With Philistine Traces.


* * * * *




=Mother and Daughter=


We are not on good terms, mamma and I, She is hard, exacting,
unreasonable; she is proud, ambitious, worldly; she is deeply embittered
against me because I am not a social success, because I am not
brilliant, attractive. Her one thought, by day and by night, has been
the promotion of my interests--from her own selfish standpoint. I am
never consulted--always ignored, and my feelings trampled upon. My
slightest objection fills her with indignant surprise, and is met with a
prompt rebuke and a _dictum_, from which there is absolutely no
appeal. Always unwilling, yet always obedient--passively obedient.

This is my third winter out and, to quote mamma, no prospects, no
prospects! Of course, I am nothing of a belle, nothing of a social
queen among women. This is a source of endless mortification to mamma.
But there is no reason why it should be so, because a belle in this
town is a lost art. Lost in the days of the brilliant Bettie V. and the
beautiful Alice B. Nowadays belleship is like statesmanship, the honors