Individual and original as Miss
Chancellor was universally acknowledged to be, she was yet a typical
Bostonian, and as a typical Bostonian she could not fail to belong in
some degree to a "set." It had been said of her that she was in it but
not of it; but she was of it enough to go occasionally into other houses
and to receive their occupants in her own. It was her belief that she
filled her tea-pot with the spoon of hospitality, and made a good many
select spirits feel that they were welcome under her roof at convenient
hours. She had a preference for what she called _real_ people, and there
were several whose reality she had tested by arts known to herself. This
little society was rather suburban and miscellaneous; it was prolific in
ladies who trotted about, early and late, with books from the Athenaeum
nursed behind their muff, or little nosegays of exquisite flowers that
they were carrying as presents to each other. Verena, who, when Olive
was not with her, indulged in a good deal of desultory contemplation at
the window, saw them pass the house in Charles Street, always apparently
straining a little, as if they might be too late for something. At
almost any time, for she envied their preoccupation, she would have
taken the chance with them.
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