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By January the co serer had returned from the country; those of the same caste outward bound for a Southern or exotic winter had departed; and the glittering machine, every part asseiven preli up at the opera, was now running under full velocity; and its steady, subdued whir quickened the clattering pulse of the city, keying it to a sublitime

The commercial reaction from the chaos of the holidays had becoayer than ever, bursting into gaudy winter florescence; the main arteries of the town roared prosperity; cross streets were packed; Fifth Avenue, al, choked up after three o'clock; and all the afternoon through, and late into the night, mounted police of the traffic squad, adrift in the tide of carriages, ste north and south froilded bronze battle-horse and its rider on guard at the portals of the richest quarter of the wealthiest city in the world

So far, that winter, snow had fallen only twice, lasting but a day or two each time; street and avenue re squads worked a the flinty asphalt echoed the rattling slap of horses' feet; all day long the big, shiningtheir distant warnings It was an open winter in New York, and, financially, a prosperous one; and that meant a brilliant social season Like a set piece of fireworks, with its interdependent parts taking fire in turn, function after function, spectacle after spectacle, glittered, fizzed, and was extinguished, only to give place to newer and roups belonging to the social solar syste effects on everybody concerned, unconcerned, and not at all concerned; and at intervals, when for afire, the twinkle of si away in distant cities beyond the horizon was faintly reflected in the social sky above the incandescentit, heel and toe, to the echoes of strains borne on the winds from the social capital of the republic; and the social arbiter at Bird Centre was more of a facsimile of his New York confrère than that confrère could ever dreahtmares