Personally, Mrs. White vaguely felt that there was something innately indecent about children anyway, the smaller they were the less mentionable she found them.  The little emergencies, of nose-bleeds and torn garments and spilled porridge, that were constantly arising in the neighborhood of children, made her genuinely sick and faint.  And she had so humorous and so assured an air of saying “Disgusting!” or “Disgraceful!” when the family of some other woman began to present itself with reasonable promptness, that other women found themselves laughing and saying “Disgusting!” too.

Mrs. Burgoyne, like Mrs. White, was a born leader.  Whether she made any particular effort to influence her neighbors or not, they could not but feel the difference in her attitude toward all the various tangible things that make a woman’s life.  She was essentially maternal, wanted to mother all the little living and growing things in the world, wanted to be with children, and talk of them and study them.  And she was simple and honest in her tastes, and entirely without affectation in her manner, and she was too great a lady to be either laughed at or ignored.  So Santa Paloma began to ask itself why she did this or that, and finding her ways all made for economy and comfort and simplicity, almost unconsciously copied them.

CHAPTER VI

When Mrs. Apostleman invited several of her friends to a formal dinner given especially for Mrs. Burgoyne everyone realized that the newcomer was accepted, and the event was one of several in which the women of Santa Paloma tried with more than ordinary eagerness to outshine each other.  Mrs. Apostleman herself never entered into competition with the younger matrons, nor did they expect it of her.  She gave heavy, rich, old-fashioned dinners in her own way, in which her servants were perfectly trained.  It was a standing joke among her friends that they always ate too much at Mrs. Apostleman’s house, there were always seven or eight substantial courses, and she liked to have the plates come back for more lobster salad or roast turkey.  In this, as in all things, she was a law unto herself.

But for the other women, Mrs. White set the pace, and difficult to keep they often found it.  But they never questioned it.  They admired the richer woman’s perfect house-furnishing, and struggled blindly to accumulate the same number and variety of napkins and fingerbowls, ramekins and glasses and candlesticks and special forks and special knives.  The first of the month with its bills, became a horror to them, and they were continually promising their husbands, in all good faith, that expenses should positively be cut down.