'--'I'm planning
to make you fill it for me,' I answered; and do you know, he
chuckled all the way home over it!"
Mrs. Billy sat laughing softly to herself. "We had great old battles
in those days," she said. "Among other things, I had to put the
Waitings into Society. They were sneaking round on the outside when
I came--licking people's boots and expecting to be kicked. I said
to myself, I'll put an end to that--we'll have a show-down! So I
gave a ball that made the whole country sit up and gasp--it wouldn't
be noticed particularly nowadays, but then people had never dreamed
of anything so gorgeous. And I made out a list of all the people I
wanted to know in New York, and I said to myself: 'If you come,
you're a friend, and if you don't come, you're an enemy.' And they
all came, let me tell you! And there was never any question about
the Waitings being in Society after that."
Mrs. Billy halted; and Montague remarked, with a smile, that
doubtless she was sorry now that she had done it.
"Oh, no," she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders.
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