pink and silver cords in Mrs. White's beautifully arranged hair.

Mrs. Burgoyne's gowns, or rather gown, for she wore exactly the same
costume to every dinner, could hardly have been more startling than
Santa Paloma found it, had it gone to any unbecoming extreme. Yet it
was the simplest of black summer silks, soft and full in the skirt,
short-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 white throat, and hanging far below her waist; pearls, as
Mrs. Adams remarked in discouragement later, that "just made you
feel what's the use! She could wear a kitchen apron with those
pearls if she wanted to, everyone would know she could afford cloth
of gold and ermine!"

With this erratic and inexplicable simplicity of dress she combined
the finish of manner, the poise, the ready sympathies of a truly
cultivated and intelligent woman. She could talk, not only of her
own personal experiences, but of the political, and literary, and
scientific movements of the day. Certain proposed state legislation
happened to be interesting the men of Santa Paloma at this time, and
she seemed to understand it, and spoke readily of it.

"But, George," said Mrs. Carew, walking home in the summer night,
after the Adams dinner, "you have often said you hated women to talk
about things they didn't understand."

"But she does understand, dearie. That's just the point."