Mrs. Burgoyne’s gowns, or rather gown, for she wore exactly the same costume to every dinner, could hardly have been more startling than Santa Paloma found it, had it gone to any unbecoming extreme.  Yet it was the simplest of black summer silks, soft and full in the skirt, short-sleeved, and with a touch of lace at the square-cut neck.  She arranged her hair in a becoming loose knot, and somehow managed to look noticeably lovely and distinguished, in the gay assemblies.  To brighten the black gown she wore a rope of pearls, looped twice about her white throat, and hanging far below her waist; pearls, as Mrs. Adams remarked in discouragement later, that “just made you feel what’s the use!  She could wear a kitchen apron with those pearls if she wanted to, everyone would know she could afford cloth of gold and ermine!”

With this erratic and inexplicable simplicity of dress she combined the finish of manner, the poise, the ready sympathies of a truly cultivated and intelligent woman.  She could talk, not only of her own personal experiences, but of the political, and literary, and scientific movements of the day.  Certain proposed state legislation happened to be interesting the men of Santa Paloma at this time, and she seemed to understand it, and spoke readily of it.

“But, George,” said Mrs. Carew, walking home in the summer night, after the Adams dinner, “you have often said you hated women to talk about things they didn’t understand.”

“But she does understand, dearie.  That’s just the point.”

“Yes; but you differed with her, George!”

“Well, but that’s different, Jen.  She knew what she was talking about.”

“I suppose she has friends in Washington who keep her informed,” said Mrs. Carew, a little discontentedly, after a silence.  And there was another pause before she said, “Where do men get their information, George?”

“Papers, dear.  And talking, I suppose.  They’re interested, you know.”

“Yes, but—­” little Mrs. Carew burst out resentfully, “I never can make head or tail of the papers!  They say ‘Aldrich Resigns,’ or ‘Heavy Blow to Interests,’ or ‘Tammany Scores Triumph,’ and I don’t know what it’s about!”

George Carew’s big laugh rang out in the night, and he put his arm about her, and said, “You’re great, Jen!”

Shortly after Mrs. White’s dinner a certain distinguished old artist from New York, and his son, came to stay a night or two at Holly Hall, on their way home from the Orient, and Mrs. Burgoyne took this occasion to invite a score of her new friends to two small dinners, planned for the two nights of the great Karl von Praag’s stay in Santa Paloma.

“I don’t see how she’s going to handle two dinners for ten people each, with just that colored cook of hers and one waitress,” said Mrs. Willard White, late one evening, when Mr. White was finishing a book and a cigar in their handsome bedroom, and she was at her dressing-table.