Gilded Gossip Dries Up and Packs Up

               

Who was in the hotter hell? The gossips or those commenting on the gossips? — Aside from a few incidents, there have been but two morsels of gossip for the socially inclined to digest. This is an unusual state of affairs; for, according to a Boston female critic: “New York society is the most gossipy crowd I ever struck.” 

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Polite society is now in a very unsettled and confused condition as is usual at this stage of the year, between two burdens of closing up the city house and preparing to leave town, very little takes the precedence of personal wants. The natural consequence has therefore been to make the last week in society very dull and uninteresting. Aside from a few incidents, there have been but two morsels of gossip for the socially inclined to digest. This is an unusual state of affairs; for, according to a Boston female critic: “New York society is the most gossipy crowd I ever struck.”

The two topics were the reported engagement of the beautiful Miss Lulu Morris of Baltimore to Frederick Gebhard and the proposed ball in honor of the Infanta Eulalia. The rumored engagement of Miss Morris to Mr. Gebhard early in the week, created a decided stir Miss Morris who is a cousin of Mrs. Richard Irvin of 12 West Thirty-sixth Street, has been seen frequently here in society and is remembered as a charming model in the tableau vivants in Madison Square Concert Hall.

The report had been quietly going the rounds of a few, and had been talked of in undertones in club circles. Mrs. Irvin was in Baltimore most of the week, and those anxious to know could neither get a yes nor a no, until Mrs. Irvin returned. Then came a most emphatic “no,” and with that nothing more was said. — the New York Times May 1893

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