To be sure they discussed their hostess as freely as though
they were not big bodies, but with rare exceptions the discussion was
complimentary in the extreme. Mrs. Hayden, what she said, what she did,
what she wore, what she served as refreshments the last time, what were
the probabilities next, her children, her husband, what they all did and
said and how they acted, etc., were always interesting themes.
Sometimes, to be sure, there were adverse remarks like Mrs. Dyke's, but
few made them.

Yes, Mrs. Hayden was decidedly popular, and although no one was ever
heard to tell of any particularly grand or noble deed she had done, she
was supposed to be doing good all the time. There were those who, in
earlier years, would have pointed her out as an enthusiastic
philanthropist, eagerly helping whatever project needed her most, but
gradually she had dropped it all, no one knew why, and now her principal
work was to shine in society, at least this was the general verdict of
the adverse few who judged from the superficial standpoint of the world.
Of her inner life they knew nothing as the world knows nothing of any
one's inner life. There may be depths or shallows in any character never
dreamed of by the most intimate friend, much less by the babbling world.

Mrs. Hayden moved about among her guests with a stately grace. She had
always a pleasant faculty of adjusting the broken links of conversation,
supplying a _repartee_ or asking a question, introducing strange
gentlemen and reviving timid _debutantes_ with a pretty compliment or a
gracious smile.

"My dear, I wish you would play something," she whispered to Miss Turner
as she passed her, "I think the group in the drawing room need a little
change;" and no wonder, for there was Mrs. Dyke in a hot dispute with a
Unitarian over Robert Elsmere, while her pastor sat near, occasionally
adding something to Mrs. Dyke's emphatic remarks.

"It's a most blasphemous piece of presumption to present such a picture
as that of the church. As if it were in its last stages of decay,
indeed! It was well such a weak-minded idiot as Robert Elsmere died at
the beginning of his career. I could never forgive the author if she
hadn't killed him," she was saying in an angry voice.

"We can take it simply as a symbol of the decay of his religion, and
that is comforting," added the minister, complacently.

"I am not at all in sympathy with the holy Catherine, with her prejudice
and bigotry. If