unsavory region.

She was not formal, not unapproachable, as it had been feared she
might be. On the contrary, she was curiously democratic. And, for a
woman straight from the shops of Paris and New York, her clothes
seemed to the women of Santa Paloma to be surprising, too. She and
her daughters wore plain ginghams for every day, with plain wide
hats and trim serge coats for foggy mornings. And on Sundays it was
certainly extraordinary to meet the Burgoynes, bound for church,
wearing the simplest of dimity or cross-barred muslin wash dresses,
with black stockings and shoes, and hats as plain--far plainer!--as
those of the smallest children. Except for the amazing emeralds that
blazed beside her wedding ring, and the diamonds she sometimes wore,
Mrs. Burgoyne might have been a trained nurse in uniform.

"It is a pose," said Mrs. Willard White, at the club, to a few
intimate friends. "She's probably imitating some English countess.
Englishwomen affect simplicity in the country. But wait until we see
her evening frocks."

It was felt that any formal calling upon Mrs. Burgoyne must wait
until the supposedly inevitable session with carpenters, painters,
paper-hangers, carpet-layers, upholsterers, decorators, furniture
dealers, and gardeners was over at the Hall. But although the old
house had been painted and the plumbing overhauled before the new
owner's arrival, and although all day long and every day two or
three Portuguese day-laborers chopped and pruned and shouted in the
garden, a week and then two weeks slipped by, and no further
evidences of renovation were to be seen.