“It—­it rather staggers one to think of trying to entertain a woman worth eight millions, doesn’t it?” said she.

CHAPTER V

From the moment of her arrival in Santa Paloma, when she stood on the station platform with a brisk spring wind blowing her veil about her face, and a small and chattering girl on each side of her, Mrs. Burgoyne seemed inclined to meet the friendly overtures of her new neighbors more than half-way.  She remembered the baggage-agent’s name from her visit two weeks before—­“thank Mr. Roberts for his trouble, Ellen”—­and met the aged driver of the one available carriage with a ready “Good afternoon, Mr. Rivers!” Within a week she had her pew in church, her box at the post-office, her membership in the library, and a definite rumor was afloat to the effect that she had invested several thousand dollars in the Mail, and that Barry Valentine had bought the paper from old Rogers outright; and had ordered new rotary presses, and was at last to have a free hand as managing editor.  The pretty young mistress of Holly Hall, with her two children dancing beside her, and her ready pleased flush and greeting for new friends, became a familiar figure in Santa Paloma’s streets.  She was even seen once or twice across the river, in the mill colony, having, for some mysterious reason, immediately opened the bridge that led from her own grounds to that unsavory region.

She was not formal, not unapproachable, as it had been feared she might be.  On the contrary, she was curiously democratic.  And, for a woman straight from the shops of Paris and New York, her clothes seemed to the women of Santa Paloma to be surprising, too.  She and her daughters wore plain ginghams for every day, with plain wide hats and trim serge coats for foggy mornings.  And on Sundays it was certainly extraordinary to meet the Burgoynes, bound for church, wearing the simplest of dimity or cross-barred muslin wash dresses, with black stockings and shoes, and hats as plain—­far plainer!—­as those of the smallest children.  Except for the amazing emeralds that blazed beside her wedding ring, and the diamonds she sometimes wore, Mrs. Burgoyne might have been a trained nurse in uniform.

“It is a pose,” said Mrs. Willard White, at the club, to a few intimate friends.  “She’s probably imitating some English countess.  Englishwomen affect simplicity in the country.  But wait until we see her evening frocks.”

It was felt that any formal calling upon Mrs. Burgoyne must wait until the supposedly inevitable session with carpenters, painters, paper-hangers, carpet-layers, upholsterers, decorators, furniture dealers, and gardeners was over at the Hall.  But although the old house had been painted and the plumbing overhauled before the new owner’s arrival, and although all day long and every day two or three Portuguese day-laborers chopped and pruned and shouted in the garden, a week and then two weeks slipped by, and no further evidences of renovation were to be seen.