daytime," she said. No cards, no luncheons, no tea-parties could
lure her away from the Hall, although, if she and the small girls
walked in for mail or were down in the village for any other reason,
they were very apt to stop somewhere for a chat on their way home.
But the children were allowed to go nowhere alone, and not the
smartest of children's parties could boast of the presence of Joanna
and Ellen Burgoyne.

Santa Paloma children were much given to parties, or rather their
parents were; and every separate party was a separate great event.
The little girls wore exquisite hand-made garments, silken hose and
white shoes. Professional entertainers, in fashionably darkened
rooms, kept the little people amused, and professional caterers
supplied the supper they ate, or perhaps the affair took the shape
of a box-party for a matinee, and a supper at the town's one really
pretty tea-room followed. These affairs were duly chronicled in the
daily and weekly papers, and perhaps more than one matron would have
liked the distinction of having Mrs. Burgoyne's little daughters
listed among her own child's guests. Joanna and Ellen were pretty
children, in a well-groomed, bright-eyed sort of way, and would have
been popular even without the added distinction of their ready
French and German and Italian, their charming manners, their naive
references to other countries and peoples, and their beautiful and
distinguished mother.

But in answer to all invitations, there came only polite, stilted
little letters of regret, in the children's round script. "Mother
would d'rather we shouldn't go to a sin-gul party until we are young
ladies!" Ellen would say cheerfully, if cross-examined on the
subject, leaving it to the more tactful Joanna to add, "But Mother