why Colonel Kate had taken such a fancy to her, then Mrs. Coolidge gave
her a coming-out party which eclipsed everything in Santa Fe's social
annals.

All the Select were there, including the Colonel's wife, who had not even
thought of trying to have a card party the same night. The doors had
been opened wide, also, for the Unassorted. All the most eligible of
these had received invitations, and not one had sent regrets. The editor
of _The Blast_, which was the mouthpiece of the Governor's party, and the
editor of _The Bugle_, the organ of the opposition, were both there; and
each of them published a glowing account of the occasion, the former
because he considered it his duty to "stand in" with whatever concerned
the Governor; and the latter because he hoped the Governor's wife would
make it possible for him to be transferred from the Unassorted to the
Select.

_The Blast_ said: "The Governor's palatial mansion was a dream of
Oriental magnificence, and the beautiful and artistic _placita_, lighted
by sparkling eyes of ladies fair and Japanese lanterns, was a vision of
fairy land." _The Bugle_ declared: "No, not even in the marble
drawing-rooms of Fifth Avenue and adjoining streets, nor in the luxurious
mansions of Washington, could be gathered together a more cultured, a
more polished, a more interesting, a more _recherché_ assemblage than
that which filled the Governor's palatial residence and vied with one
another in doing homage to the winsome Indian maiden."

To call the Governor's residence "palatial" was part of the common law of
Santa Fé journalism. In actual fact, it was a one-story, flat-roofed,
adobe house, enclosing a _placita_, or little court, and having a
_portal_, or roofed sidewalk, along its front.