Though she later climbed to literary fame on the strength of her novels set in the American frontier such as O Pioneers! and My Antonia, much of Willa Cather's early fiction was set in the upper-crust enclaves of New York and New England. This collection of short stories deftly explores the inner workings of American high society in the early twentieth century, with a few forays into the vast Western plains that served as the backdrop for her later work.