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Show H YEAR OF GAIETY IN WASHINGTON H Feasting and dancing, gaiety and laughter are H promised to Washington society when President H Wilson and the new first lady of the land return H from their Hot Springs honeymoon. "Eat, drink, H and he merry, for tomorrow we officially expire," H is the quotation on the lips of tho quadrennial aristocracy at the capitol which every twenty H years or more is made up of Democratic office holders and their families. The White House IH will be a blaze of illumination and will vibrato to H ' the sweet strains of tho Marine Band orchestra Hg as the merry dancers clasp in the grape-juice Hg grapple, or caper in the Woodrow wriggle. "On H with the dance, let joy bo unconfined!" The members of the cabinet will vie with the H members of the senate in the display of lavish H hospitality. It is even rumored that, now Byran 1 is out and Daniels turned militant, a little wine H will be served at least to the diplomatic set, be- H cause they are used to it and know how to handle H it, you understand. There will be sounds of rev- 1 elry by night and the buzz of gossip by day. h So suddenly did the announcement come that H President Wilson and the new mistress of cne H White House would put away dull care and seek H deluding joys, that the official haut monde has H hardly had time to prepare a program of the sea- H son's events, and now there is a grand scramble H for gowns and gewgaws, engraved cards and open H dates. The shop window, displays of milady's H millinery and lingerie are beautiful to behold; H vintners are laying in new stocks of old vintages; H jewelers are exhibiting new designs; theatrical H and operatic stars and musicans are being booked H for private entertainments. The wife of one cab- H inet officer is said to have written a couple of H playlets which will be produced before select aud- H iences. History and mythology are being ran- H sacked for characters to be represented at fancy H dress balls. Debutantes will bloom like dande- H lions in the warm spring sod. Altogether the sea- H son promise to be a hummer. H The gala-day feeling in Washington this year H is in marked contrast with the puritanical ex- H pression which the city assumed when President Hf Wilson was inaugurated in 1913. The usual prep- i arations had been made that year for the inaug- j ural ball, when, right in the midst of them, came B the decision of President Wilson that there would m be no ball; that his was to be an administration H of Jeffersonian simplicity; that the office of chief 1 magistrate was one of such grave responsibility fl as to preclude his entry into the social whirl. So Hj society put away its silks and satins and donned H linsey-woolsey and became sedate. All receptions M and jollifications were tabooed. 1 But, pshaw! "When a man comes to him- fl self," society comes into its own. Hence it is H decreed' that this, the last presidential year of H Mr. Wilson, shall, in the memory of his Demo- H cratic courtiers, be the first, "Praising what is H lost makes the remembrance dear." |