She visited little, having no leisure and less inclination to fritter away her morning in gossip and chit-chat; but she set apart one evening in each week for the reception of her numerous kind friends, and of all strangers who desired to call upon her.  These reunions were brilliant and delightful, and it was considered a privilege to be present at gatherings where eminent men and graceful, refined, cultivated Christian women assembled to discuss ethical and aesthetic topics, which all educated Americans are deemed capable of comprehending.

Edna’s abhorrence of double entendre and of the fashionable sans souci style of conversation, which was tolerated by many who really disliked but had not nerve enough to frown it down, was not a secret to any one who read her writings or attended her receptions.  Without obtruding her rigid views of true womanly delicacy and decorum upon any one, her deportment under all circumstances silently published her opinion of certain latitudinarian expressions prevalent in society.

She saw that the growing tendency to free and easy manners and colloquial license was rapidly destroying all reverence for womanhood; was levelling the distinction between ladies’ parlors and gentlemen’s clubrooms; was placing the sexes on a platform of equality which was dangerous to feminine delicacy, that God-built bulwark of feminine purity and of national morality.

That time-honored maxim, “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” she found had been distorted from its original and noble significance, and was now a mere convenient India-rubber cloak, stretched at will to cover and excuse allusions which no really modest woman could tolerate.  Consequently, when she heard it flippantly pronounced in palliation of some gross offense against delicacy, she looked more searchingly into the characters of the indiscreet talkers, and quietly intimated to them that their presence was not desired at her receptions.  Believing that modesty and purity were twin sisters, and that vulgarity and vice were rarely if ever divorced, Edna sternly refused to associate with those whose laxity of manners indexed, in her estimation, a corresponding laxity of morals.  Married belles and married beaux she shunned and detested, regarding them as a disgrace to their families, as a blot upon all noble womanhood and manhood, and as the most dangerous foes to the morality of the community, in which they unblushingly violated hearthstone statutes and the venerable maxims of social decorum.

The ostracized banded in wrath, and ridiculed her antiquated prudery; but knowing that the pure and noble mothers, wives, and daughters, honored and trusted her, Edna gave no heed to raillery and envious malice, but resolutely obeyed the promptings of her womanly intuitions.

Painful experience had taught her the imprudence, the short-sighted policy of working until very late at night; and in order to take due care of her health, she wisely resorted to a different system of study, which gave her more sleep, and allowed her some hours of daylight for her literary labors.