then thought most admirable in behaviour in social relations. Two ladies once went to Brookside to call upon Mrs. Ruggles. They chanced to be seated in a reception hall or room from which a staircase rose to the second story. Their hostess, summoned from garde', or kitchen in an attire she thought unsuited to receiving guests, swept through the hall and up the stairway, apparently unaware that anyone was present. Then she reappeared in other dress and with utmost graciousness and hospitality made her guests welcome. A little thing, 'tis true, but a clear indication of the way in which her generation treated the lesser matters of social intercourse. Elegance was the standard. Those of Mrs. Ruggles' type or school of breeding were instinctively unable to be inelegant. They were made in another mold. Industry, self-control, noblesse oblige, the commonest social interchanges given polish and dignity,-these, all, were characteristic of the good breeding of the lady of the Victorian era in Dutchess and, as exemplified in the varied career of Mary Broome, were reflections of the social standards she was born to. The lady of that day was superior to her own outward circumstances. She possessed within herself that which made her independent of those circumstances and gave her power to meet the events of life without loss of social poise. A great war is a social earthquake. After war the world is never the same as before; never the same in politics, in economics or in manners and customs. There follows a period of re-formation and then the birth of new standards. Just now the pendulum in the world of women has swung to a radical extreme, far removed from the standards which guided the world of Mary Broome. Her world cannot return nor can the present radical swing of the pendulum represent woman's considered choice in the field of manners and customs, the field of good breeding. But to that considered choice, which thinking women soon must make, the lady of the Victorian era has a contribution to offer toward a composite whole and the story of Mary Broome may serve as a reminder of values now forgotten. HELEN WILKINSON REYNOLDS.
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