Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Mrs. Hill's Visitors

1895

The Beautiful Finesse With Which She Rebuked Their Impertinence.

Mrs. J. J. Hill, wife of the new millionaire railroad magnate, is a person of a great deal of keenness, and nobody knows it better than a Washington woman who spent a summer out in St. Paul once upon a time. This Washington woman had met Mrs. Hill and chose to consider her one of the newly rich and not to be named in the same afternoon with the people of her set.

The Washington woman had a friend with her for a few days, and in showing her the sights of the town took her to the Hill house. Mrs. Hill was very gracious, though the Washington woman scarcely concealed the fact that curiosity alone prompted her visit. She and her friend were shown all over the house and asked questions that would have been really inexcusable in any one but a woman of society.

Finally she asked to be shown Mrs. Hill's jewels. Mrs. Hill's jewels, by the way, are among the finest in the country, and Mrs. Hill is fond of them with a connoisseur's pride and not with the vanity of a woman fond of adornment. Mrs. Hill left the room, and in a few moments the jewels were shown, but it was a maid who showed them. The hostess did not appear again, and as the two women went away the maid asked them politely if they wished to see anything else.

Personally I think congress ought to vote Mrs. Hill a medal. — Washington Post.

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