The Inner Sisterhood

After a ball, Kate Meadows sits before her mirror and takes stock of an evening that has bruised her pride. Her escort's awkwardness, Belle Mason's popularity and the attention paid to an old pale-blue dress all feed her complaints. Douglass Sherley's social satire follows the private thoughts behind polished manners, with sections devoted to seven women. Parties, admirers, clothes and the small calculations of fashionable life give its voices their material.

The book also turns to the way money and family standing shape social ambition. A daughter's account of her parents sets a hardworking father beside a mother eager for another evening out. Mrs. Babbington Brooks, newly wealthy through her husband's railway invention, builds an elaborate artistic persona to gain notice. Its humor comes from the gap between affectionate compliments and sharp private judgments. These fictional portraits show how status anxiety can turn even friendly conversation into a contest over clothes, attention and good taste.