Mrs. Bode¹ was one of those astonishing Americans who, often with no social affiliations² whatever, even in their native city, or living on the very edges of civilization, have yet so wide and accurate a knowledge of the cardinal³ families of the various capitals of the world, that they would be invaluable⁴ in the offices of Burke, Debrett, and the Almanach de Gotha. Whether this enterprising variety of the genus Americana invests in these valuable works of reference, or merely studies them in the public libraries, ourselves would not venture to state; but that is beside the question; some highly specialized⁶ magnet in their brains has accumulated the knowledge, and less ambitious Americans, even aristocratic foreigners, are often humbled⁸ by them when floundering conversationally⁹ among the ramifications¹⁰ of the peerages of Europe. These students, if New Yorkers, take no interest in the “first families” of any state in the American union save their own, but if a malignant¹¹ chance has deposited them on what stage folk call “the road,” then are their mental woodsheds stored with the family trees of their own state, and New York. Never of any other state: Washington is “too mixed”; Boston is “obsolete”; Chicago is “too new for any use”; San Francisco is too picturesque¹² to be aristocratic; the South can take care of itself; and the rest of the country, with the possible exception of Philadelphia, would never presume to enter the discussion.

Nor is this the extent of their knowledge. They can talk fluently about all the great dressmakers and milliners that dwell in the centres of fashion, and even of those so exclusive as to

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