The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne

ch 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 i

es, and she liked to have the plates come back for more lobster salad

ing, 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

she would have gone hungry rather than have Jeanette unable to wear white shoes to Sunday School, rather than tie Jeanette's braids with ribbons that were not stiff and new. She was so entirely absorbed in pursuit of the "correct thing," so anxious to read what was "being read," to own what was "right", that she never stopped to seriously consider her own or her daughter's place in the universe. She was glad, of course when the children "liked their teacher," just as she had been glad years before when they "liked their nurse." The reasons for such likings or dislikings she never investigated; she had taken care of the children herself during the nurse's regular days "off", but she always regarded these occasions as so mu

ntial moment, to Mrs. Lloyd. They had met in the market, where

That's so, your dinner is tomorrow night, isn't it?" s

have her?" For Mrs. Lloyd's turn to entertain Mrs

days," she went on, "they simply can't do things, as my mother's maids used to, for example. Now the f

rew said, in a mildly martyred tone. "Crackers and everything else

s!" said

e for the salad, you know, 'dinner rolls, sandwich bread, fancy cakes, Maraschino cherries, maple sugar,' that's to go hot on the ice, I'm going to

y, and little Mrs. Carew went contentedly home to a hot and furious session in her kitchen; hours of baki

be said to her credit that usually everything did "go right" at her house, although even the maids in the kitch

hilarating consciousness that one of these days she would entertain in turn; so the Santa Paloma housewi

airs. Only the wearers and their dress-makers knew what hours had been spent upon these costumes, what discouraged debates attended their making, what muscular agonies their fitting. Only they could have estimated, and they never did estimate-the time lost over pattern books, the nervous strain of placing this bit of spangled net or that square inch of lace, the hurried trips downtown for samples and linings, for fringes and embroideries and braids and ribbons.

hort-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

elligent woman. She could talk, not only of her own personal experiences, but of the political, and literary, and scientific movements of the day. Cert

r night, after the Adams dinner, "you have often said you

stand, dearie. That

differed wit

rent, Jen. She knew wha

rs. Carew, a little discontentedly, after a silence. And there was anot

ing, I suppose. They're

ad or tail of the papers! They say 'Aldrich Resigns,' or 'Heavy Blow to I

the night, and he put his arm about

t or two at Holly Hall, on their way home from the Orient, and Mrs. Burgoyne took this occasion to invite a score of

d cook of hers and one waitress," said Mrs. Willard White, late one evening, when Mr. White w

itted Mr. White,

t she loses all interest in spending it! Personally, I don't see how she can entertain a great big man like Von Praag in that old-fashioned house.

chairs and tables and bed, the easels, the gilded frames! Seven or eight years later she had changed all this for a heavy brass bedstead, and dark rugs on a polished floor, and bird's-eye maple chests and chairs, and all feminine Santa Paloma talked of the Whites' new things. Six or seven years after that again, two mahogany beds replaced the brass one, and heavy mahogany bureaus with g

hought," observed Mr. White, ap

wife. "She dresses a

etty!" said the man a

s a sile

White confided to her ivory-backed brush. "I