I have read two Edith Wharton novels so far, my favorite being,The Age of Innocence.  I plan to read more one of these days but I also wanted to check out some of her short stories.  Xingu happened to work out well with the Historical Fiction Alphabet Challenge that I am in.

Xingu starts out with a ladies lunch club that was formed by ladies who enjoyed culture and the arts but didn’t want to be seen going to events alone.  It wasn’t decent to do that at the time.  They met to discuss a book by an author that they invited to one of their up-coming meetings.  However, Mrs. Roby neglected to read the book.

“Mrs. Roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of memory, as a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she HAD seen the book at her brother’s, when she was staying with him in Brazil, and had even carried it off to read one day on a boating party; but they had all got to shying things at each other in the boat, and the book had gone overboard, so she had never had the chance–“

 The other members gossiped about Mrs. Roby and discussed if she was an appropriate member of the club.  
The next meeting was at Mrs. Ballinger’s home.  She hadn’t prepared as well as she would have liked for the guest author and hadn’t picked a topic of discussion.  However, Mrs. Roby was able to come up with one off the top of her head during the meeting and asked the author a question about Xingu.  The rest of the ladies were relived that Mrs. Roby was such a quick thinker and came to the rescue.  The discussion progressed and then both Mrs. Roby and the author had to leave.
The rest of the ladies didn’t like how both left so abruptly but continued the discussion of Xingu.  However, one by one they all admitted that they knew nothing about it.  They decided to look it up.  
You’ll have to read it to see what happened next.

Though I was able to guess a piece of the ending before it came, I did enjoy this story.  It got quite funny during the scene where they discussed Xingu.  Edith Wharton has a way of capturing ladies of society in an amusing way.  You can read Xingu, here.

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