He entered into the plan, therefore, with a
feeling of pride as well as pleasure, and the great project was resolved
upon in a family council without a dissentient voice. This was the
party, then, to which Mr. Bernard was going. The town had been full of it
for a week. "Everybody was asked." So everybody said that was invited.
But how in respect of those who were not asked? If it had been one of
the old mansion-houses that was giving a party, the boundary between the
favored and the slighted families would have been known pretty well
beforehand, and there would have been no great amount of grumbling. But
the Colonel, for all his title, had a forest of poor relations and a
brushwood swamp of shabby friends, for he had scrambled up to fortune,
and now the time was come when he must define his new social position.
This is always an awkward business in town or country. An exclusive
alliance between two powers is often the same thing as a declaration of
war against a third. Rockland was soon split into a triumphant minority,
invited to Mrs.
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