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parted, and paired with someone else. Two hours of the German cotillion: unheard of! Supper offered an extravagance of crystal and silver gleaming on crisp white damask: a banquet table laden with creamed soups, plump oysters, jellied fish, roasted meats, citrus sorbets, sweetmeats, rich cakes, and spun sugar confections. Everyone pronounced the Schermerhorn ball a triumph. It would be remembered for years to come.
    While Mrs. Schermerhorn drew accolades for her party, one of the guests,her husband’s cousin Caroline, was beginning to stir some interest of her own. Four years older than Hetty Robinson, Caroline Schermerhorn grew up just a few doors down from the Grinnells in a family of wealth and lineage. With a childhood that was the polar opposite of Hetty’s, “Lina” enjoyed the role of family pet. The youngest of eight, she was fussed over as an infant by a slew of nurses and nannies, was schooled by a French tutor, spent weeks every year in Europe, and was introduced to society at a ball in her parents’ stately home. Then, only a few months before Mrs. Schermerhorn’s ball, at the age of twenty-four, the plain-faced and pudgy Lina married William Backhouse Astor Jr., heir to the vast fur and real estate fortune. Their posh wedding at Grace Church raised more than a few eyebrows. Did she do it for money? gossipers asked. And why did he marry her?
    In a prenuptial agreement, it was later revealed that William received a trust fund from his parents with $185,000 in securities plus income from property at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, site of the future Empire State Building; the agreement stipulated that after his death, Caroline would receive $75,000 a year for life.
    Descended from two of the earliest Dutch families in New York—a seventh-generation Van Cortland on her mother’s side and fourth-generation Schermerhorn on her father’s side—Lina knew the old Knickerbocker maxim “Live handsomely but not lavishly.” But she feltotherwise. She was developing a taste for Parisian gowns by designers such as Worth, precious jewels with aristocratic provenance, a box at the opera, and parties on a lavish scale. Her husband could provide it all. And she could provide him with a pedigree.
    William Astor grew up in a family obsessed with making money. His grandfather John Jacob Astor, a coarse-spoken man with crude manners, felt it was his mission in life to amass a fortune and pass it on to his heirs. Like Edward Mott Robinson, he lived to accumulate dollars and loved enlarging the pile. He expected his son William Backhouse to do the same.
    In the course of his life, William Backhouse doubled his father’s fortune. He developed rows of tenements and crammed the toiletless firetraps with hordes of the Irish, Jewish, and German immigrants flooding New York. He knew every piece of property he owned, was familiar with all the details in his leases, and had an aptitude for increasing the value of his real estate holdings. But as rich as he was, he held his money as tightly as a beggar clutching a tossed coin. He bought coal for his house in the middle of summer when prices were at their lowest, refused to ride in a carriage, and walked wherever he could. Waste was wicked; frugality was his watchword.
    His son William joined the family business, married Caroline Schermerhorn, and would father several children and retreat from the New York world. He would seek investments in other cities and women in other ports. But he would provide his wife, Caroline, who had huge social ambitions, with the vast wealth to carry them out.
    While Caroline thrived on New York’s social whirl, Hetty sought escape from the city’s commotion. While Caroline gushed with friends over the latest fashions, Hetty cocked an ear toward the men conversing on finance. While Caroline was intent on enhancing her position, Hetty was focused on expanding her fortune. The debutantes’ world held little attraction for her: she may have enjoyed